Twin 3208T engines

Question, I have twin 3208T Cat engines, the starboard engine burns twice the amount of fuel as our port engine at the same RPM. Can anyone tell me what to why that would be?

Henry
Linda Lee
45' Aquarius.

Is there a prop on both engines?

How do you know that? What are the symptoms?


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Assuming you statement about fuel use is valid, note that fuel burn is proportional to load. Check whether your starboard prop has a fouled crabpot line wrapped around it.

How precise are your tachs. What do you use to synchronize?

If you have dual tanks is it possible your fuel return is going to just one tank?

hfmckevitt said:

Question, I have twin 3208T Cat engines, the starboard engine burns twice the amount of fuel as our port engine at the same RPM. Can anyone tell me what to why that would be?

Henry
Linda Lee
45' Aquarius.

Click to expand...

We would need more information in order to be of any help. How did you determine the fuel burn per engine. The usual reasons for more fuel burn such as dirty air filter would not account for that much of a difference. Are you just estimating fuel burn based on fuel gauge readings? If that is the case then a partially clogged fuel return line might be the case. Anyway, we need more info.

injectors need cleaning on the engine using excesive fuel. Been there and done that on last vessel

Have the same engines and had the same issue. High Wire could be on track - my problem was that my tachs were out, so Port engine was burning a lot more fuel by physically running at a bit over 100RPMs higher than Starboard even though tachs were showing same RPM's. It was carrying more load.
Get a photo tach and check. The old tachs are never accurate across the range though. I set mine as "most accurate" around the 1500RPM mark as that is where I spend most time. At idle they are still showing around 100RPM difference.
Not saying it is your problem though but always worth checking.