The EFI myth

Phreakish said
#1 reason for EFI: Today's gas sucks and nearly boils at room temperatures.
I have carb'd and injected vehicles. All my carbs suck, regardless of ethanol or not. After being parked hot, fuel boils away - even with an electric pump to refill the carb, the excess fuel in the engine causes long cranks and hard starts.

Possible fix: carb spacer. Either plastic or wood. If no room for that, the thickest foam or cork gasket you can find. And a heat shield. And if you're not running one, consider a ThermoQuad.

Letting a carb'd engine sit, or being stored for any length of time also always causes issues for me. Either with plugged passages, or failed parts/gaskets/seals. I've spent more in replacement carburetors and parts in the past 5 years than I have on oxygen sensors (none of my other sensors have ever failed). I have an offroad motorcycle that every season, regardless of how it's stored, needs the carburetor removed (no small feat!), cleaned, roto-rooted, and re-assembled. Even then it takes 20-30 mins of idling before it'll take throttle. Once it runs, it's great, most of the small running issues self-correct, but it can take several hours of running for fresh fuel to wash away the gunk of the fuel that's evaporated or corroded something. I still don't know how far a tank of fuel will take me on that bike, because I wind up spilling enough with every carb removal that I'm sure it has an impact. As a result, it doesn't get ridden near as much as it should.

Do you use Sta-Bil?

Failed accelerator pumps and corrosion debris causing issues is a seasonal occurrence for me. It sucks! I hate smelling like fuel, and yet every one of my carb'd engines (and I have no less than a dozen on my property) requires some level of dismantling and poking about in order to make them run if they've sat more than a few days or a week. Doesn't even matter if I drain them first - without fuel present, condensation will cause corrosion issues and I'm still left smelling like gas after scrubbing and poking.

I have found draining is probably a bad idea. The contrary-FILL the tank with gas treated with Sta-Bil or StarTron.

Just this weekend I had to fire up a carbureted mower at another property of ours. Been sitting with the fuel valve closed for 4 months - carb was run dry after the last use. Very little fuel in the tank, left in a conditioned space. Filled the tank with fresh gas, opened the valve and let the bowl refill. Took 1/2 an hour to get it started and running. My back and shoulder are wrecked from all the pulling. This mower has maybe 12 hrs on it - not even to it's first oil change. When used once a week, it starts on the first pull every time. But more than that, and the chance of success shrinks exponentially. I expect it will need a new carb by next year. Same with both of my 4 stroke weed-wackers this season. Serviced and stored dry for the winter. This spring, I spent hours getting them started and de-gunked.

Definitely need different storage techniques. As I said: tanks FULL and treated. Worked for me for years. My elderly mower fired up the first time every spring.