If they mandate ethanol up to 15% in our fuel. Buy new motors designed for it? Friend of mine is an outboard mechanic. He says that it will be very hard on current outboards, and horrible for older motors. They (the marina were he works) has already had 2 fires due to ethanol eating customers gas lines over the winter.

Please read the following article;

There will be a day in the not to near future where ethanol will be in your marina's gasoline. If have read your owner's manual you know that is not a good thing. While most outboard engines will operate with up to 10 percent ethanol (E-10) anything over that is bad news. How are we going to be able to cope with the new alcohol fuels? Here are a few of the problems with boating and alcohol.

Alcohol is a great solvent. So good a solvent that it can clean out an older boats fuel system and deposit all the old crud in the engine. This can lead to not only poor performance. It can kill the engine. The higher the alcohol content is in the fuel mixture, the greater the potential for major damage. While E-10 is allowable E15 fuels and fuels with higher ethanol concentrations can start causing problems..

Alcohol and water mix. With gasoline any water the gets into your fuel settles to the bottom of the tank. If enough water gets in to the tank ,a fuel water separator normally stops everything before there is too much damage. With alcohol, the water mixes with the alcohol and runs right past the fuel separator. If enough water mixes with the alcohol, the engine will be damaged while running. In low concentrations, the engine still runs, but once the engine is shut off the water in the fuel system starts corroding important parts. An engine that sets idle for an extended period can have a great deal of rust build-up on the cylinder walls, piston rings and other steel components. Not a good thing if you want to go fishing.

Alcohol is less powerful that gasoline. At very high alcohol fuel concentrations like E85 ethanol fuel, more fuel is required for proper performance. With direct injection engines, reprogramming the fuel flow rates will be required to compensate. With carborated engines, the jets will have to be larger. Cold starts will be very difficult for two-cycle engines requiring starting fluid or alternate start-up fuels. This means your miles per gallon will go down and fuel costs up.

Finally alcohol is corrosive to many rubber and synthetic materials used in boat and engine fuel systems. New materials rated for very high ethanol concentrations will have to be installed in older boats and engines. While this is the least of your worries now, a leaking fuel line in your bilge will not be.

The conversion to ethanol in the automotive industry will be a lot smoother than in the boating industry. Boat owners and manufactures need to be prepared for some very tough decisions in the not so distant future. All boat owners need to be aware of the potential problems that lie ahead. These issues have been mentioned before. The reason for this is they have not been satisfactorily addressed.

to sum this up, the marine world is facing the same problems as the car world.  what are those problems?  You can't run ethanol in any engine not designed to run it.  While yes, it will use more gas, the gas is also significantly cheaper.  As far as power, with a little knowledge of how a motor works (in terms of performance) you can get alot more power out of ethanol than gas.  The fastest cars in the world run on alcohol, not gas.  The engine just needs to be set up to handle the corrosive qualities of alcolhol.  That being said, I don't think there's much benefit to squeeze more horsepower out of you engine unless you race your boat lol.  

We can't expect to lower our dependence on Foreign oil without going through some changes.  This one seems pretty doable, so long as they phase it in.

We can't expect to lower our dependence on Foreign oil without going through some changes. This one seems pretty doable, so long as they phase it in.

We are dependent on foreign oil because we will not drill our own or build refineries. We have enough oil alone to last over 600 years. Ethanol is not the answer.

Brazilian gas has 23% of ethanol and anyone can buy gas without ethanol here, however it is more expensive.

I don't know about you guys but when they put 10% ethenol in the gas, I got 10% less mileage in both my cars. I can't figure mileage out on my boat but it feels like it gets a little less economy as well so I'm wondering where the savings are, where the positive is for the environment?

I'm still using X amount of gas (plus 10% ethanol) to get the same distance......

My truck was getting 20 mpg so to go 1000 miles, I use 50 gallons of fuel. With ethanol added I'm only getting 18 mpg. To go the same 1000 miles, I now use 55.6 gallons of fuel.

Where is the upside to that????

The actual fuel that is burned still puts out the same emissions plus whatever the ethanol excretes.

Not sure what the logic is behind this other than to help out people that grow and sell corn and stuff to make the ethanol.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I know non if the technicalities of this stuff so enlighten me. I want to help with the environment just as much as the next guy but I don't see an upside here. At 15% ethanol, given the same parameters, I'm assuming I'll lose another 1 mpg on my truck. Would this be an accurate assessment?

All this and I'm not even touching on the damages to engines and fuel systems...........

I think it is just one of those eventualities.  I'm sure there are all kinds of people looking into the impact it will have on pleasure boaters, especially those with such a huge stake in it, ie. All the outboard and boat makers.  It sure sounds like it will suck for those of us that already have motors though,...

1% mix is too much as far as I'm concerned.

Some of you may disagree with me on this but here is my take on it:

The people in the government that made this whole thing with ethanol into law were never interested in the environment. They simply wanted to keep getting support from the big business farming community.  I can assure you that whatever is slight benefits are gained by burning ethanol in vehicles is negated by the amount of emissions produced by growing the corn to be used for this. Corn is a highly demanding crop as far as nutrients and water are concerned, and therefore large amounts of fertilizer and irrigation water must be used to grow it. Also, all throughout the process of preparing the fields, to harvesting, fertilizing, etc. use large amounts of diesel fuel(another item that is subsidized for farmers). Also, tractor diesel is not required to be processed as highly as highway diesel, but you have to have a permit to buy it. Once that corn is harvested it has to be hauled somewhere to ferment and the alcohol has to be taken to a refinery to be added to your gas. Enjoy your ethanol gas.  ;D

 Question for those of you that know more about this than me (probably most everyone :-[). The new additives that they are coming out with (new Stabil, Startron and others), will they help? My motor is an '84 Merc. Am I gonna just have to take it out back and shoot it to take it out of it's misery or what :'(...

skillet