Regarding fuel consumption, an interesting quote on fuel consumption:
I've never seen this sort of physical conversion to fuel burn, but it seems pretty reasonable. Accepting logic above, my DF-60 would use about 5 gallons at WOT (producing a full 60 hp). In one hour at WOT I'd travel about 22 miles, yielding about 4 miles per gallon. I doubt that I'd get quite that much economy at WOT, but it might be interesting to do some testing of this theory.... If your already set up with Lowrance then installing the necessary sensor into the backbone is the cheapest way to go ...
As a rule of thumb it takes 1/2 lbs of fuel to make one horse power (for one hour). Gas weighs approx 6.2 lbs per gal. So 1 gallon of gas will support 12-13 hp. if you have a 300 hp engine you will burn about 24 gals of gas in one hour at a constant rate (wide-open) ...
For example, I could try running an hour at some easy cruise speed and check absolute consumption by refilling the tank. Say I held 3000 rpms for one hour, producing a steady speed of 12 mph. My Suzuki's power chart indicates that I'm producing 40 hp at 3,000 rpms. According to logic above, I should consume 3.33 gallons (40 / 12). Strangely enough, 3+ gallons is darned close to what I'd expect to use to go 36 miles.
Hmmmm ....
( Chip? )
Power Chart for DF-70 (my DF-60 chart is close to same)
