[jergofish]

Putershark, I read your post and I don't think that was the problem although the symptoms match with the exception of:

1. I went to Mexico with only ten gallons in the tank and filled it up (60 gallons more) when down there. Up until that time the engine would idle forever and smoothly even at start up when running on California gasohol.

2. The problem occureed immediatly on the first start up in Mexico. I had about a 20 minute run in very shallow water to get out of the bay and it had to be done at idle. The engine died repeatedly as soon as the new fuel reached the engine, about five minutes into the run. It also smoked heavily until warm. It did so the entire month and a half I was down there, running fine after warm up including idle (although sometimes smokey).

3. Upon return to the U.S. and back on gasohol the problem went immediatly away!

4. My top end in Mexico was 5400RPM on straight gasoline while I can hit 5900RPM in California on gasohol.

I thought it might be an octane thing but neither my truck or my marine engine seemed to ping because of the Mexican gasoline although both had less power and higher fuel consumption per RPM. My truck did not have idling problems and didn't appear to be smoking at idle.