Norm, I am guessing your Evinrude 3hp is a 2-stroke engine. There are two schools of thought on running engines dry. In the 'old days' this practice was common--especially on engines that did not have bowl drains on the carb. The thinking was that it was the lesser of evils to get any remaining fuel out prior to storage (2-stroke mix can go bad starting two to three weeks after initial combining of fuel). Some manufacturers even advocated this practice in the owner's manual. The contrary school insists that running the carb dry can cause two potential problems. The first argument is that the engine can, for a brief moment, have inadequate lubrication (assuming two-stroke), as the fuel-oil mix itself is what is doing the lubrication. At first glance, this would seem odd, as you would not think the motor would run any longer than it had fuel/oil mix available. Apparently, as the argument goes, the engine can run on after the oil portion has been exhausted, and when only residual gas vapor is present. If this is true, then there might be a brief time when the rings and bearings are poorly lubricated, and cylinder scuff and/or bearing wear could result. The second argument (and this would be true for both 2 and 4-stroke engines) is that running dry necessarily results in an extreme lean-burn scenario--albeit for a brief time. Lean burn in and of itself would not be a problem save for the fact that it dramatically raises combustion chamber temperatures. The concern is that this can be damaging to valves, valve guides/seals (4-strokes only, obviously), as well as spark plug electrodes/insulators. While I come from a long tradition of run-dry proponents, and have never suffered any engine damage from doing same, I have come around to the opinion that if there is a bowl drain available (and virtually all newer engines have this), I will use that method instead. Scott Your original Message: I have a Evinrude 3hp on my Monty 15. I have been running the fuel out of carb when shutting it down. I recently read in the manual for it that you should not run the fuel out on shut off. The recent post discussed varnished forming in bowls and jets with fuel left in. Any opinions on this? Norm M15 #172