my experience with small motors has always been they need to have the fuel shut off and the carb run dry before sitting for extended periods, then add the right amount of Stabil to the tank .... last winter I used my 40 year old snowblower once and gave it that shutdown a few weeks later - and after nearly a year of sitting I turned on the fuel, gave it 2 light pulls to insure gas was flowing, and with one hard pull it was purring - haven't done any more than run it to it's standby location this year, and in a couple weeks I'll start it again to go back to storage and do a proper shutdown again, same gas that was put in nearly 2 years ago
it isn't ethanol that's the problem, it's operator error, the key is to always run it until it dies from starvation, clear the carb right out, then treat any fuel that'll sit in the tank, it doesn't matter what kind of gas it is, if you leave it in the carb to evaporate it'll gum things up
Bill
