Mercury Pro XS External Fuel Filter?

[zinger]

Should there be an external fuel filter on a Pro XS or not. Getting A LOT of mixed "suggestions".

[baxflash]

Mercury says no, i don't have one and its been almost 7 years and 350 hrs

[Revolution141]

All the ones ive seen from mercury come with an external fuel/water seperator to be fitted.

[XstreamVking]

Only way to know for sure if there is no restriction from the x-tra filter os to put a vac guage behind the filter. Racor makes a filter with the gauge already installed in it.

[Onetime]

Mercury says no because to restrictive. I believe they are referring to their own water separator though. Can't speak to flow restriction on aftermarket ones.

I personaly run one because I have fiberglass tanks and want to catch anything before it can get into the engines diaphragm pump. I also run an external electric fuel pump so not so worried about the restriction of the water separator.

If if I didn't have fiberglass tanks and the worries with gas and ethanol breaking down the fiberglass I wouldn't run them and just use the water seperator that's on the engine. JMO

[obrien]

I would not hesitate to install a fuel water sep on that engine. I would recommend it since the filter on the engine is in the vst and isn't much of a fuel water sep to begin with. Even without fiberglass tanks in the boats you can still get water in the fuel especially if you are running ethanol fuel

[Davidlake]

Mercury does say "not to use a filter", but... a Raycor filter flows about 10 times the demand of even a 300xs. I highly recommend one! Have two on my 28 Skater.

[Bjorn08]

Used to have a racor for a long time and once I did not change it smart craft it's self was putting up an error marking fuel flow, Disabled the racor and worked with straight until I bought a new racor filter, Installed the new one and no errors at all.

Highly suggest a good racor filter, I'm sure it wont restrict if it does smart craft will tell you straight away.