Lowrance Fuel flow Meter

[Sinsemilla]

$170 and you really won't save that much fuel mucking around with trim and that on a boat of your size.. I'd save the extra coin and get a bigger tank made which will give you piece of mind and give you heaps more fishing options

[purple5ive]

Yep I agree that the bigger tank is a much smarter option. Will think about it properly.

[Yota]

Double Yep agree about it’s not going to save you big money, but the benefits I see are you get to see and hear and feel the slight differences between when the trim is off a bit and how that affects the boat handling and the fuel burn, for example.
As well you get to know what’s normal in regards to fuel burn, so if something is going on with the carby in this case, or injectors in another case you can know about it before it gets so bad something goes wrong - hopefully not.
Plus - it’s cool having fancy stuff on your boat :rofl:

[TheOsprey]

I fitted an in-line fuel flow meter and it shows on my Lowrance HDS10 Gen 2. Best thing I ever bought as I go out from Portland so as I can run round in big circles dragging bits of plastic, metal and feather pretending to tuna fish. You need to calibrate it and be consistent as to where you fill your tank to. But all in all a good buy as I have a 2002 Mercury which doesn’t have any fuel usage output information except it can tell you pretty accurately when the fuel level is zero.

But as others have said, buy a bigger fuel tank first.

[purple5ive]

Thanks for the input guys, ill look into a bigger fuel tank in the future, atm I can just take a spare 25l jerry can which I have done before.
My fishing is usually not very far from the mainland and generally hug the coastline or tend not to fish too far away from it 90% of the time, I have my tolling motor as a backup but it’s a last resort and I don’t rely on it to get me back safely tbh, its just a backup.
This exercise is mainly to fine tune my driving habits to get the best fuel economy when I need to do long trips (wringing its neck in those instances for no reason is just plain useless)
Most times my fishing involves using a ¼ or ½ the tank, but there have been times where I have wished for a bigger tank. Its good to see positive feedback from people who actually have used this device.
Another thing I will look into is a different prop at some stage as well.
Many thanks

[Mattblack]

Not sure how accurate this is, but it's interesting to look at...
http://www.boat-fuel-economy.com/outboa ... ion-liters

[purple5ive]

dont have mine in there mate, mostly all 4 stroke. mine is a tohatsu 50hp 2 stroke carby.
Thanks for that though, someone else im sure could benefit from it.
cheers

[blacklab99]

Hi Purple,
My previous motor was a 2006 merc, 4 cylinder 2 stroke. From a standing start if you weren't hanging on, and you weren't being a nice deckie, I could easily plaster you over the bait board with a quick push of the throttle !. I carried 170 ltrs of fuel and had a fuel gauge.
Fuel gauges, in my opinion, are their for there looks.
I cant tell you how many times, coming back in from a day out wide, where the gauge showed all was good, that I was near running on fumes.
Anything over 4k in revs and I needed shares in an Arab oil refinery.
Turned out that this motor had sweet spots, one of them was not 4 up, with a full live bait tank, out wide struggling to troll lures in the swell.
The up shot, fitted an inline fuel flow meter and after dialing it in, began to realise my usage a whole lot better.
You could fit an extra fuel tank as suggested and that may very well be your end outcome. But fitting one of those fuel flow meters first and setting it up properly, which is the key, will give you a really good indication depending on what your doing. The knowledge of that will determine if you need an extra fuel tank, but may also give you your sweet spots and you can work around it.
I sold the old Merc, will be re powering with a 4 stroke and set up and will run a system through my Simrad. I have an old fuel flow meter ( i think ? ) if the guy that bought my old motor didn't take it, you welcome to it, I'm away on holiday at the minute, so I honestly cant recall, I'll have to have a look when I get back.
But that's the way I would go before adding costs and weight with an extra tank at this stage,,, it was an eye opener for me for sure.....
HTH

Col

[purple5ive]

Colin. Great insight and yet again another positive outcome. I'm going to be using it to study how to fine tune the driving skills or find that sweet spot as you mentioned
Thanks