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I've got a Montauk with a 4 stroke 90 Yamaha('06) on it and I don't know how late I will be using the boat into the winter season (Last usage in '09 was Thanksgiving - First usage in '10 was end of March). I have rigged up a running tank in the garage with drainage to the outside, so I can run the engine whenever I want without moving the boat outside. Assume that there is always Marine Sta-bil and Yamaha Ring-Free plus in the tank (and all other maintainance is done throughout the year). After all of the reading I have done, sounds like E10 shouldn't sit in the engine or filters too long. If I don't want to do an official winterization, how often would you guys run the engine and for how long?

[img]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/mb466/IMG_0207.jpg[/img]


Note the snow in the picture from this Spring...

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Just run it for about 10 minutes each time you want to run it. If you run it every other week or so, you should be fine.....especially since you're keeping it in the garage.

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Frankly, I wouldn't bother with running it (and taking the risk of CO poisoning). You need to change the engine oil and gear oil a minimum of once a year anyway, so just do that before you put the boat in the garage. Since you already run fuel stabilizer just a couple of squirts of oil in each plug hole, a quick crank, and you're done. Your stabilized fuel should go for 3 or 4 months easy - ours routinely goes for 8 months, with no problems so far.

Tim

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Read some of the articles posted here on E10 in the fuel and then transfer what is in your tanks to the car and use it. All the info I read on E10 says it goes stale in less than 3 months so why bother holding it over.

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Why would he risk CO2 poisoning?

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Not CO2, CO - he's proposing running the motor in the garage. It's unclear from the pic whether it's an attached garage, but it sort of looks like it. Nothing to fool around with, in my opinion.

Tim

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I with Tim on this subject. Properly winterize it once (squirt of oil in the cylinders, fuel stabilizer, etc.), and it will be fine in the Spring. Beside the risk CO poisoning, cold weather starts are the worse for an engine wear. All your doing by starting it every couple weeks is subjecting the engine a cold weather start.

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OK. Its a fuel injected 4 stroke engine. I agree with the oil in the cylinders, but do I run the engine till its empty (both fuel filters)? BTW it is a detached garage, so I'm not worried about CO.

My ultimate goal is not to gum up the fuel injectors....

I actually like working on carbs now, but fuel injectors are beyond me.

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You could run it dry, but I don't think you really need to. Since 2005 our routine on our FI 4-stroke is to change the fluids, stabilize the fuel, squirt some fogging oil in the cylinders, and spin the motor to distribute the oil. That all happens in September or October. The next May, we change the fuel filter, pump the bulb to fill it, and the motor has always fired up instantly, and run perfectly thereafter.

I'm glad to hear it's a detached garage,but you do occasionally hear horror stories about CO finding it's way into places; since the alternative to being careful is death, better to be careful.

Tim

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In the end, it's much less of a hassle to spend the short amount of time necessary to winterize the engine than it is to fire it up and run it every week or two.
By all means, keep the boat go-ready until you are absolutely sure that your season is over. At that point, it's probably best to winterize the rig, and start anew in the spring.

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Starbrite has a product called Star Tron which is supposed to stabilize and counteract E10 from jelling. My buddy up at West Marine is all about it and said it is better than Stabil. I can't say how it does but I trust his advice and will probably try it.