2014 G23 with 550 gas consumption

[peternajim]

I read on a few forums some dismal gas mileage findings from some members with the 550 and wanted to post my data from today.

We rode for approximately 2 hours with 3 riders with my '14 G23 with a 550 (1:48 gear ratio) with full stock ballast at 23.5 mph. We burned 20% of the 65 gallon tank which is 13 gallons of premium gas.

Per person we burned 4.3 gallons each. At $2.75 per gallon, it cost us $11.80 for each of us. Not too bad since the gas prices are so low.

I read other reports that this engine burns 15 GPH, which is more than twice our experience today. We were pretty efficient today, not driving many extra miles for our session, but 15 GPH is definitely not correct in my experience.


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[nyryan2001]

Not sure how you are getting those numbers.

You are turning 3500-3600rpms full ballast at 23.5mph with your NCRS cranked up. That's 12-14gph for everyone else, I donno.

I have a custom 16x16 prop, and I'm able to surf heavy at 2600-2900rpms... And I average 6-7gph at those RPMs.

My numbers are consistent over 2yrs of recording gas usage.

[Nordicron]

I'm with Ryan. Your either not counting engine hrs and rounding with the clock or are idling a whole bunch and just cruising. Even on the 21' boats with the 350's if u load and ride them your using 9gal an hr all day every day!

[nyryan2001]

So, perhaps his error is using the % off the LINC.... Vs actual gallons used..... Start from a completely topped off boat... Use the boat.... Then Top it off again and see how much it took to refill it.

The digital gas guages are not perfect.... not linear, affected by many factors such as is the boat perfectly level. A much more accurate assessment would be a physical replacement of fuel from a topped off boat.

[WinniSQ]

I'm with Ryan. Your either not counting engine hrs and rounding with the clock or are idling a whole bunch and just cruising. Even on the 21' boats with the 350's if u load and ride them your using 9gal an hr all day every day!

Cant speak for Nautique but from my 21 foot Centurion fully loaded ballast with the 343 runs 3.4 Gallons per hour, tracked over two full 100+ hour seasons. Again I know I am a Nautique wanna be but haven't yet been able to pull the trigger on a Nautique yet. So seeing a 21 footer with a 350 doing 9 gal an hour is pretty bad in my opinion.

[vision]

I have the 2013 450 in a G23 and by tracking gas added to fill we have averaged just under 6 GPH over 400 hours. This is mostly wake boarding and surfing with about 5% cruising.

[Nordicron]

Cant speak for Nautique but from my 21 foot Centurion fully loaded ballast with the 343 runs 3.4 Gallons per hour, tracked over two full 100+ hour seasons. Again I know I am a Nautique wanna be but haven't yet been able to pull the trigger on a Nautique yet. So seeing a 21 footer with a 350 doing 9 gal an hour is pretty bad in my opinion.

It's all in what u do and how u calc the math. We run a 7mile stretch of river. Dock start and stop at launch. Shut boats down between riders. Full ballast, 23mph. Done this for years and boats after six sets(3trips up river and 3down) always use 18plus gallons. We always start full and end full as a nice ethanol free gas station is just up the street from the launch. This run takes 2engine hrs as described if your not f'n around idling the boat as riders change.

This is true of a x15,star, supra and moomba who all ride in my crew. Actually my 343 seems the most fuel efficient of those listed.

[xrichard]

It's all in what u do

This is the key issue.

I'd expect most of these motors to burn +-/1gph at idle. If you idle between sets, that can easily account for 30-50% of your engine hours. You could find out by pulling your Diacomm data--I think most people idle significantly more hours than they realize.

Let's take 40% idle time at 1gph to include all idle time (between sets, around the dock/ramp, getting out of the 5 mph). Then assume you're starting from the dock or launch area so you're running 60% of the time fully loaded at 10 gph. You'd burn 6.4 gph...which is a pretty low number.

It gets lower if you have to commute to your riding area. If 20% of your engine hours are running out and back at 5gph (e.g. 2 hrs engine time equals 24 minutes of commute...or 12 minutes each way. This is pretty typical for my local lake), then your overall gph is 5.4gph.

On the other hand, if you don't idle between sets and don't commute, you're at about 10gph.

So, one person running the same boat can report 5.5gph to 10 gph. That's a huge difference.

On my boat, for example, I've recorded anywhere from 6.2gph to 11.1gph (based on hours run between filling the tank). The difference is all in idle time and time spent with and without ballast...not to mention how many times I'm stopping and getting back on plane again when a rider falls--the most fuel-intensive part of operation is getting a heavy boat on plane).

Perhaps not too relevant to Peter since he said he didn't commute much and was efficient in his use.

But, I wouldn't trust the digital gauge until you track it. Mine is very accurate at about 75% or above, moderately accurate at 50-75%, and very error-prone below that. Fortunately, it seems relatively consistent so I can make a chart of adjustments to take its reading and convert to actual fuel remaining.

[WinniSQ]

It's all in what u do and how u calc the math. We run a 7mile stretch of river. Dock start and stop at launch. Shut boats down between riders. Full ballast, 23mph. Done this for years and boats after six sets(3trips up river and 3down) always use 18plus gallons. We always start full and end full as a nice ethanol free gas station is just up the street from the launch. This run takes 2engine hrs as described if your not f'n around idling the boat as riders change.

This is true of a x15,star, supra and moomba who all ride in my crew. Actually my 343 seems the most fuel efficient of those listed.

I agree its all in what you do. This summer we did virtually no wakeboarding as I was nursing a shoulder injury. Typical day after work is the boat spends less than 20 minutes idling. We give it about 8 minutes to warm up while we fill all the ballast tanks and then quickly dial in the wave (2 mins) from there the crew I ride with are all "good" riders who run about 30-40 minute surf sessions with minimal falls (not crushing the tricks just cruising) one after the other. The boat is shut off when switching sides. We have never pulled a tube, we never ski on this boat, and we never just cruise around (pontoon for that). We strictly surf or wakeboard. My numbers for this year were calculated like you guys are saying, the gas dock is literally 600 feet across the lake and the boat is filled up prior to leaving the dock and upon arrival home to avoid condensation in the tank.

Again I know its not a Nautique, and I am in no way trying to compare Centurion to Nautique or anything because I truly do love both boat companies. If money was no option id be surfing a G23. Just curious when I saw a similar platform getting such bad gas consumption. Rechecked my numbers, overall this summer 3.67 gallons per hour was the final number after 135 hours. Now that the two companies merged I am hoping they were be more comparable both sporting PCM engines.

Our reason for having such low idle time is because we have realistically a 4 month season. Weekends on the lake are a wash because there is way too many tourists on the lake to enjoy it so after work from 4PM- sunset is all we get. And we try to push it as much as we can.

[peternajim]

So the way I calculated gas consumption was off of the link %. We started at 81% and ended with 61% (both measurements were recorded on the water- so on a level boat). We don't idle the engine between sets, only for a few minutes initially to warm up the engine. I dont understand why people want to idle between sets (more pollution,cost and also more Carbon monoxide one might breath in putting the board on and to those sitting in the back of the boat - even with the FAE since the boat is not moving). I bet that this is the biggest factor that is making the descrepancy along with a small margin of possible error with the link percentage...but someone noted that the link % is pretty accurate on the higher end.

[Tallredrider]

I think it depends a lot on how much you crash. Idling back to your rider can chew up a significant chunk of time, but uses a lot less gas. When I go out with a buddy of mine who wakeboards and hardly crashes, we use up a ton of fuel compared to the guy who crashes all the time, even though they both have sets of the same duration overall.

At a minimum you should be calculating your fuel consumption from the hour meter, not your wristwatch.

Other boats really are that much more fuel efficient.

Owning a boat that costs 100k and then worrying about fuel consumption is sort of laughable, IMHO. I put on 100 hours or so on my boat this year. Let's assume 10 GPH, then that equals 1000 gallons of fuel. At $2.50 per gallon, I spent $2500 on fuel. Best money I spent on entertainment/recreation all year.

[ironj32]

From my experience, A LOT of it has to do with how many times you are getting out of the hole, and how much weight you are running in the boat. If you're like me and typically spend a lot of time falling and having to constantly get up on plane, then you'll most likely notice that you burn quite a bit more fuel, compared to the sets that you don't fall on. If I spend 30 minutes falling, going from 0-24mph all the time, I'll burn a lot more gas than I do of just 30 minutes staying at 24 mph.

[Beg4wake]

What's fuel efficiency?

[peternajim]

All good points. I fall quite a bit since I'm always working on moves. The second guy didn't fall much during his set (maybe 2-3 times). The last guy had a pretty short set and fell 2-3 times. I also did a short surf back to the dock with only rear ballast full, but it was probably all of 3/4 of a mile. This is the 3rd time I measured 19-20% (12-13 gallons) of my tank being used over a 2 hour session. I just wanted to post my findings so far since it has been written in this forum that the 550 burns 15 GPH and about half of that is my experience give or take a bit of inaccuracy with the link percentage reading.


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[JoeA]

The 550 is awesome and can be reasonable on fuel consumption but will drink it when you demand lots of power or ride heavy. Enjoy the boat and forget about fuel costs. A good day on the water is worth way more than the cost of fuel. I call it smiles for miles.