Lowrance Fuel Flow meter?

F

fishwish

Member
I am thinking of installing a Lowrance Fuel Flow meter...anyone have any experience with them, good or bad?

Thanks,

FishWish
 
I am using them. They do work but in a limited way. I am not able to easily plan a trip and fuel consumption in a way that is easy for me and I am still a bit uncomfortable in planning long trips where fuel is not readily available. I would like to be able to measure what is in the tank and how far I can travel at the rate of consumption. They do measure fuel flow and approximate use per engine.
 
There is one built into the LCD Smart Meter for the OPTI on the Helm and I look at it once in a while but it really is not much use for me once you know your best RPM range for fuel economy, just interesting. I never do long range trips and always use a small fraction of the gas in the tank even on the longer for me trips.
 
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I installed one 2 or 3 years ago. It really made me change how much throttle I used when I saw the gallons per hour difference between a few hundred RPM's. It has more than paid for itself many times over in saved fuel.
 
Gallons per hour is not a particularly reliable measure of fuel economy. Miles per gallon is much better. You can throttle back to increase your GPH but it might take you a lot longer to get where you're going and wind up using more fuel.
 
worthless. install one like a mercury smartguage that interfaces to your engine and GPS. that way it can tell you MPG instead of GPH which is a silly metric.
MPG = Avg. MPH / GPH
anyway the way i usually do it is to take 6 (6 gal/25lit/36lbs) tanks along :
1/3 going - 2 tanks to reach destination otherwise turn back.
1/3 coming - 2 tanks to head back home.
1/3 reserve - 2 tanks if crap happens and one dedicated for the kicker.
 
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Put one in last year, it's been great.Didn't trust my fuel gauge so put this in. For cruising the MPG overlay is the way to go.You can change trim and rpm to get the best combo for MPG. Found that increasing RPM up from where I used to run increases MPG quite a bit. Tend to be on the throttle and trim a lot more now.
 
In my last boat I put in the lowrance EP60R fuel flow sensor and it was accurate within 1 gallon on 50 after calibration
and it networked right into the HDS so you could display your burn rate, mpg, gals used, gals left a few different things if I remember right on screen
make sure its mounted as the say (vertical)and I installed an inline filter just before it also, very small impellor will bind easily if not
it worked really well
 
Thanks Grayclan...that's kind of what I thought...I will be interfacing with my head unit, so will be able to overlay MPG...seems to me to be very useful information, especially running longer distances.

Thanks to all for your responses...FishWish
 
The inline filter is essential,
pretty much all problems with them have arisen from a piece of crap in the tank getting sucked up and blocking the sensor wheel
 
Thanks for the tips, Hookin' Up...always good to hear from somebody with experience...I did read through the installation manual online, and noticed the vertical install, and the fuel filter. One thing that I might not be able to deal with is mounting the sensor close to the tank but ABOVE the highest fuel level in the tank.

Have to go out to the shop and check on the boat...darn ;)

Thanks...FishWish
 
Just checked...not a problem...just have to mount it between the tank and the Racor.

Hookin' Up...what has to be vertical? The fuel line or the black sensor part?
 
the sensor has a fuel flow direction arrow on it it must point upward for best results
I cut my fuel line and added a section in in order to have the sensor facing correctly, inline filter goes anywhere between tank and sensor.
hope that makes sense
 
I have a 2004 5.7l. Harbor Chandler suggested I first hook up an actisense emu1 to convert analog to digital. That way I could hook up the fuel system through the HDS. Mike was 90% sure it would work but to date had not heard any do it. Has anyone tried this or what would you recommend for managing fuel. My one gauge stopped reading at 1\2 tank and the old GPH meter seems way out to lunch. Thanks for any replies.
 
find yourself a lowrance ep60r easy install and your HDS will tell you everything you need to know
fuel burn, fuel remaining, mpg, gph it will even estimate fuel burn to destination.......etc etc etc
 
Hookin'up said:
find yourself a lowrance ep60r easy install and your HDS will tell you everything you need to know
fuel burn, fuel remaining, mpg, gph it will even estimate fuel burn to destination.......etc etc etc
Click to expand...

Thanks Hookin'up I'll check it out.
 
Very little investment for piece of mind. Many times I have had the luxury of not topping off my tank to get home.
 
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