Fuel Flow Meters

I just got the Northstar 210 but have not installed it yet. It took over a month to get it here - everyone was out of stock. The sending unit for the fuel gauge I have gave up. I'll let you know how I like the thing.
 
Been busy with health issues Charlie, but had to jump into this thread for a moment. The E80's and C80's do have a NEMA2000 bus already; called "SeaTalk". If you go back about three years on here, you should find the thread where I installed a Lowrance fuel flow meter on the Jenny B, hooked it up to the C80 Seatalk bus and it worked perfectly using every function as advertised, with one very minor issue; the position readout on the Lowrance meter will flash, but it is as accurate as the E80/C80. Can't get much cheaper either. The flow sensor uses a turbine in the fuel line so if you can put the sensor where it senses total fuel flow it'll be cool. Otherwise you'll need two sensors and two meters. Takes a couple of trips to calibrate tankage levels but after that you'll not be off by much if at all.

Then again, technology moves forward. Some of the newer types might serve your Suzuki's better. Dunno

Don
 
The Navman 210 has been sold under the names of Navman, Standard, Faria, Northstar, and think some motor manufactures have used it. If you look hard you can find them for $100 bucks. Flowscan is quite a bit more money. I haven't tried theirs.
 
I finally have my Faria flow scanner installed and it works great IMHO. Trying to locate it over 12" from the compass and over 20" from the radios was a chore.
It works even at 800 rpm puttsing out of the harbor at no-wake speed, about 0.4 gph.

Cruising.............

8.8 gph 3800 rpm 22.8 mph 2.59 mpg
9.2 gph 4000 rpm 25.2 mph 2.74 mpg
9.8 gph 4200 rpm 26.8 mph 2.73 mpg
10.8 gph 4400 rpm 29.2 mph 2.70 mpg

Boat had 4 adults and two kids, 80 gals of fuel and trimmed neutral. Water flat. Speed from GPS. It repeated well.
So it looks like 4000 to 4200 is the rpm for me.
 
I have used the navman/Northstar (same unit-also was sold by Standard Horizon) on 3 boats. They seem accurate. The C Dory 25 was not reading properly, so I left the new owner a complete new unit. (that was a Lowrance--which seems to use the same flow meter transducers). My son said he had "fiddled with the calibration" by accident and it was not reading correctly--I could not get it to read correctly, so thought it might be a hardware issue.

The Navman/Northstar may not be real accurate at idle--on myTom Cat it reads 0.4 gallons an hour at idle. However the fuel totalizer corresponds with a few percent on the fill ups. At speed the flow seems to be accurate.
 
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