How long is stabilized Gasoline good for?
 

Just got my engines back and installed. I have been down since August 2006, Aprox 1/2 tank of fuel ..used the correct amount of STABIL ... HOW LONG IS THE FUEL STILL GOOD? should I mix Fresh gas with the old this spring ?.. the boat is ALWAYS stored inside rack stored.. aprox 75-100 ga. in a 200 gal. tank... :evilb::cool-smiley-011::rolleyes:

stable
 

it is good for 2 years.fill tank up with fresh gas prior to first run of season

I couldn't get 2 year old fuel to run well in my weed whacker.
Forget about the octane rating after a year. If you're motors are supercharged or high compression you might ant to consider getting rid of all of it.

yes but did you treat your fuel ?

Yep,
Stabilizer seems to do a good job at preventing carbs from gumming up. But I dont think it's that great at maintaining octane ratings, preventing fuel breakdown, oxidation, contamination, etc.... what ever happens to old gas.
Just my $0.02
Gary

You're absolutely right. Pump it onto your car, truck or whatever. Gas is cheap. Motors aren't. Neither are chasing phantom problems and on-water breakdowns.

I believe the sta-bil bottle says one year. It does not keep fuel from losing octane. I wouldn't chance it and would pump the old fuel out and put it into cars.

Fuel won't lose octane in a metal tank. The additives that adjust octane and other properties in the gasoline are highly aromatic and will go right through plastic. Got that straight from one of VP's engineers. Gas will last forever in a full, sealed metal container. It's contact with the atmosphere that causes the chemical changes.

question: how come it wont run right in a boat, but a car will have no problem burning it?

Less compression in the average car engine plus an engine management system to accommodate for lesser fuels.

You can usually tell if the fuel has "gone bad" by the way it smells & looks. If it seems odd in any way, you're best off not to even put it into a car. Now you have the problem of what to do with maybe 100 gallons of funky gas. That's a big bonfire.

If you can get it into drums, a used oil hauler will take it at no charge. Most likely an oil change shop will too. They can mix it in with their stock tanks and burn it in their used-oil heater or let their pumper take it. Safety Klean will suck it out for you but they'll charge you- not a ton though.

my 311 was down from feb 06 til nov 07 ... I didnt take a chance and pumped put about 120gals ...it looked smelled fine ...Then put in 10 gal fresh fuel and pumped that out ...If you had been hi and dry for almost 2 years it just wasnt worth the risk ...my kids burnt all the fuel in their cars ... no issues ......m

No way I'd run it.....I was down for 3 months and had octane issues with un-treated 93 octane ethanol fuel on a high compression motor (9.75). Once we put a portable 6 gallon tank of fresh fuel in for a test run everything was fine.

key word ....Ethanol ....

I was down for several months and just added 20 gallons of 110 octane to the tank and had no issues. I am also running 10.7:1 compression.

Sta-Bil is good for one year, and I had some problems, especially with two-stroke equipment. I started using PRI-G for the gas, and PRI-D for the diesel years ago (my diesel Ex sits for a while at times). I've not had any fuel problems using their product since making the switch from Sta-Bil. I also made the switch to strictly avgas (100LL) for my two-stroke equipment i.e. chainsaws, weedeaters/trimmers etc. since it has near-indefinite shelf life if well-stored. (and smells SOOOO
oooo good when it's burning:cool-smiley-011:
Remember, Sta-Bil in itself is only good for about a year- if yours is older, buy a new bottle.
Although I haven't ever tried it, PRI advertised their products as capable of restoring up to 85% of the original quality to old fuel. I use the smell and look detection method- if it smells funky or its color has gone to a brighter yellow, its not worth risking, and I get rid of it. Since MTBE has been banned, gas can go bad in as little as a month. Throw a little ethanol in their to bring in the water problem, and you now have a product that you spend more $$ for and get less quality .....

It's all to do about LOAD - the HP required to get a car to cruise at say 70 MPH is probably around 45-50 Hp or so in a mid-sized modern aerodynamicly shaped car - compare that to a lot of 'stock' marine applications that can't even get up to 70 with 350-400HP and at WOT - that's full load and full HP production out of the engine. Also think about accelerating 'normally' in each - in a car you're fairly light on the throttle - on a boat - you're fairly heavy - that's a lot of load there too...

Another main reason is most modern cars have knock sensors - they can add fuel and retard timing to compensate for poor quality fuel - thus run the 'junk' fuel through just fine.

If it were me - I'd pump it and burn it in my cars (keep the good gas for the weedeaters/mowers - they sit enough as it is...) Heck I had an old beater 88 GMC pickup that I put some 4+ year old un-stabilized gas that I drained from a resto project - put about 10 gallons into the half-tank remaining - the fuel smelled like heck but the old truck burnt it.... Still could smell the foul fuel even after burning 2 'clean' tanks of gas....

I've never had trouble with stabilized fuel. I fill both my car tanks up in the winter. 383 SBC High 11:5:1 in the Pontiac and a 355 ProCharged 8:3:1 motor in the camaro. I dont notice a differance.