Getting more Boating out Of Your Gas Dollar

OK Now Ed in parts over at Marine Dynamics can get you most of this stuff but you will have to have your engine model ready - usually the one he will want is the serial number off of the tilt. This article is designed around 4 stroke inboards and I/O's I will do a revamp of the 2 stroke article later on.

First thing you want to do is make sure you have good spark. I can't stress enough how this makes a difference. There are several things you can do to improve your spark.

First off: Get good wires. That extra 30 or 40 bucks for a set of Accel Yellow Wires or Moroso Blues may seem like a lot but when you think about it what you save in fuel alone is going tro be a heck of a lot more. I personally prefer teh Accel 9MM solid core wires and make my own from a spool but places like Marine Dynamics in Englewood will make them for you if you are feeling lazy. Dont think for one second that a stock set of wires is delivering every last ounce of spark to your plugs - it aint happening. Also be religious about getting good water tight boots and changing your wires every couple of years (no matter what it says on the box).

Number Two: Run Good Spark Plugs...

There are any number of aftermarket plugs out there and a lot of them dont have a direct cross reference but again I can recommend Ed in Parts or any other parts dealer that will take the time to either look it up for you or hand you the books and let you cross reference on your own.

When cross referencing your plug you need to know the heat range, thread size, and lenght of threads. Boom - the rest is common sense.

There are any number of excellent plugs out there. Bosch Platinum +4's are about the best universally and are followed by Splitfires only because Splitfires go bad more often. Either way, replace them every hundred hours or when you feel the engine not quite hitting right.

Number Three: Get good spark coils or coil packs.

There are several manufacturers making coils out there and number one in my heart has always been Accel followed by MSD. A higer than stock coil will give you way better spark resulting in a way better burn of your fuel. I still run old fashoined distributors and go with the big Yellow Accel Super coils and I do have one V-12 with an Ishamel ignition system that uses 12 super coils. Note too that a lot of the stock coil packs are really 6 or 8 individual coils and you can wire in Super Coils in their place - expensive but worth it. Most of the Coil Pack replacements are not much higher voltage than stock coils so be careful and make sure you are selecting a hi performance, high voltage solution.

OK so so far based on say a 350 GM block in a 22ft boat with a 100 gallon tank - we have just given you an extra 2-3 hours of run time on that tank. Now think about that a bit - That means your normal 8-9 gallons an hour has dropped enough to where you have indeed spent some money but you have also made it to where as long as you are religious about changing your plugs and wires - it is a permanent economy gain. Sure it gave you a few extra ponies and makes it all feel peppier but if you run it the same as you normally did before, you have saved yourself money every time you top off your tank for the rest of the time you own your boat.

Number 4: ALWAYS USE GOOD OIL.

  Good oil is one of the top fuel saving weapons in your arsenal. Change your oil on time every time. You will have to expiriement a bit to see which one gives you the best economy in your particular engine but some helpful hints are:

Run synthetic if at all possible. Mobil 1 is good as is Castrol Syntec among others. Which one gives you better economy depends on the engine in question. For Example in one of my boats I have Cummins Vt-555's and suck down 11 gallons an hour (each) at 40knots on Mobil one yet if I put in Castrol I drop down to 9 gallons an hour (each) at the same speed. I had an extra 30 gallons of Yamaha Synthetic laying around one time and ended out needing stock in OPEC at 14 gallons an hour.   Another old Chris craft I had; had a pair of 350 GM blocks in her and would guzzle over 30 gallons an hour on any synthetic oil and when I dropped in some cheal Valvoline Semi-Synthetic one time she only sucked down about 25 gallons an hour - I stayed with the semi synthetic after that. It definitely depends on the engine as to which oil is best and that is something you will have to use a little common sense trial and error to figure out but as a general set of rules consider pure Synthetic, then Semi Synthetic. For older engines with a lot of hours on them Synthetic is still an option but I would recommend changing your pan gasket and valve cover gaskets before making the switch.

Another thing on oil is forget the manufacturers intervals - change your oil at about 1/2 the time the engine manufacturer says - this will not only make your engine last a lot longer - you wont have that performance lag that oil gets as it starts to go bad.

If you are running an inboard... keep everything greased and keep your transmissions topped off to proper levels.

For you I/O guys the same rule applies - service that lower unit - use good gear lubes and grease - they will pay for themselves many times in what you would waste in gas.

  Carbs and injectors:

Hey if you are running this new fangled electronic fuel injection crap..... Best I can tell you is get a performance chip or entire performance computer dialed in for your engine. At the same time though I would recommend running a good cleaner through every other tank or so and there are any number of fuel injector cleaners out there - Sea Foam seems to work the best followed a close second by Yamaha Ring Free.

     Carb guys Now here we can help a bit.... You are probably already running a pretty good intake but just in case I might recommend Edelbrock or Offenhauser to you guys still running inefficient stock crap (especially on GM blocks). There are many and you have to decide if you need one that is efficient at providing torque or at providing speed - yes they even make some designed to provide economy but I strongly recommend evaluating how you run your boat and lean towards torque or speed

.There are a number of replacement carbs out there to replace your leaky, inefficient old one and The Edelbrock family seems to be the most efficient. If you are currently running a spread bore, you may want to consider an adapter plate and going with a square bore Edelbrock for the simple reason that they are among the mos efficient 4 barrels out there and are basically the same as the Webers we used to run back in the day - granted they are designed for performance but as long as you continue to run as you normally would - they will provide a better, more efficient mix than most stock carbs and therefore improve your fuel economy.

   Most of you will not have to go to the extreme of going with a new carb, just take the time to make sure they are: clean, in good shape and jetted properly. 7 out of 10 engines I see running out there on the water are not optimally jetted. What you do is get a glass test plug, pop that sucker in and dial in your jets till you see a nice bunsen blue in all rpm ranges. If possible do your normal running rpm under load while running or on a dynaload (artificial load dyno ) You may have to swap out metering rods, swap out jets... Depends on what carbs you are running. Taking the time to do this is well worth it though - one kid here at the marina is running an older carbureted 1977 Camaro and just by dialing it in properly we were able to take him from 17mpg to an average of 27 - with a good set of coils he is throwing 31mpg around town average - this is from a 305 GM block we pulled out of a boat and we still have all the catalytic perverters attached to the exhaust!

 

      Props: A good propeller is something to behold. Now they have charts out there that will tell you a generic prop for your boat/engine combination but in reality you need to find a marina that will allow you to leave a deposit and try out several props they way you run your boat. Most of the prop charts are going to give you max speed at a certain tested load and not necessarily the speed you run at or the load you usually run with.  You have to try several in the right size/pitch range and see which one gives you the fewest gallons per hour the way you run your boat. Granted if you are running a stock prop.. A Solas brand prop will be your biggest improvement with Mercury Quicksilver props coming in second for efficiency - As a general rule..Stock props are the cheapest junk the manufacturers could lay their hands on and are intended to meet only general needs rather than your particular style of running/loading your boat. If you cant afford a Solas or a Quicksilver... Go with a Michigan Prop - they are cheap but strong and while lacking in all the fine tuning of real performance props, it will generally still give you that fuel mileage edge to have a properly dialed in prop combo on your engine.

    A lot of prop shops will cup a prop for you but this can go either way - if you are already at the threshold for where you normally run it will cost you fuel... If you are under it will help you save fuel - it is again a trial and error thing.

    

     Hope this was helpful and sorry I did not go into details as much as some will feel I should have but this is intended as a general set of guidelines not as a complete reference - just the basics to keep in mind when setting up your boat for fuel savings... You gas guys have my deepest sympathies... I love my Diesels!