[gjgerhard]

That's true. I was surprised when I caculated that we're talking about several cc's of gasoline. All the more reason to use a fuel cut-off every shut-down, not just the forced kind. Is that what modern hybrids do?

Correction: it would be several cc's if the driver left the throttle at cruise position. Of course, no one would do that, you lift your foot when you turn the key off. Well, that's what I was doing, and that's why there is damage---never switch off an engine unless it's at idle.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, and I'm too lazy to do them again, but a 40mpg car going 60mph is using close to 1 1/2 cc's per second. So, considering my throttle plate was closed within a few milliseconds of power-down, the gas that was washing down my cylinders was probably not much more than one cc or so per episode. Divide that by four cylinders, and each was probably getting the equivalent of a couple of spritzes from a perfume sprayer.