Re: Tower of Power or Tower of Problems?
The reason why you see lots of postings regarding Inline Sixes is because they were such a popular motor and so many were sold over the years. So naturally there's gonna be a large cross-section of them here. And since the newest I-6 was mfr'd in the late-80's, they're gonna need maintenance.
You may or may not regret trading your I-4 for that Tower of Power; the I-4's have plenty of their own "quirks" and I expect you won't see them have the quite the following that the Sixes do!
Most of the problems you'll see nowadays are fuel-related, electronics wearing out (and believe me I've replaced plenty of stators etc in the later motors too!), improper setup, etc etc.
This ethanol stuff is just killing the motors, I worked on a guy's late-model Yamaha 4-stroke this morning. He got a load of water in his gas and even after we flushed the carb out with clean fuel it wouldn't run. The needle valve stuck and it was flooding. I took the carb apart and there was a surprising amount of deposits and corrosion in the bottom of the float bowl. The outside of this motor is clean as a whistle and it's just amazing how badly the fuel is eating up the carb inside.
It ran great after a carb cleaning but I'm gonna recommend he use Stabil marine additive which is something I see new at Wal-Mart etc. Supposed to have much more ethanol-related additives and corrosion inhibitors than the regular stuff. Star-brite makes something like it too.
Anyway, enough on the fuel stuff, but it is a major cause of problems nowadays and you definitely gotta keep up on the maintenance.
Feed that I-4 good gas/oil, decarbonize occasionally, keep the cooling system up to snuff and watch the oil injector lines, she'll give you good service.
But you can't beat that I-6 exhaust note, that's for sure!
Cheers.......ed
