cadunkle
06-14-2014, 08:57 PM
'89 Saltare with 454 rebuilt by PO ~2007. No idea what's in it, but carb is a 2 year old Holley 800 DP, Distributor a Mallory Unilite with surge protector from Mallory wired inline, NAPA marine coil about a year old. Boat ran great end of last season, no issues. Stored with full tank of 89 octane with stabil added after it sat unused for a few weeks. Rocked boat on trailer, ran it a bit and winterized.
Boat was hard to start this season, gas was nasty yellowish and didn't vaporize easily when spraying accelerator pump. Sprayed out carb and air bleeds without disassembling any of it and got it started. Fuel looks better but not fresh. Went out for the first time this season today and it started easy, mix of idle and 2400-2800 RPM cruising for about 20-30 mins then anchored ate lunch, chased wiring under dash since radio wouldn't work, then ran maybe 20 mins at 2500-3000 RPM and came back to idle... Stalled. Immediately restarted but misfiring badly. More throttle and misfiring badly but over maybe 1800-2000 RPM smoothed out. Ran the 20 minutes back to the ramp at 2500+ RPM and it ran fine even up to wide open. Slowly back to idle and it misfires starting somewhere around 2000 RPM or less and gets worse approaching idle, wants to stall but won't quite stall. Sprayed carb cleaner in all 8 air bleeds and after spraying one of the primary air bleeds it runs better but still misfiring. Called it a day and pulled out.
Once home I checked distributor cap and rotor, cleaned off some minor carbon tracking, sprayed air bleeds, adjusted idle mixture screws. It sounded like a 4 cylinder but eventually I got it idling normal. Revved up around 2500 and back to idle, and back to misfiring and sounding like a 4 banger. Lightly working accelerator pumps without opening throttle seemed to slightly smooth it out. Played with carb spraying it and adjusting mixture some more and it's still misfiring but sounds more like it has a big cam. In other words not a steady hit on half of them as before but random misfiring not as bad.
I've never stored this boat will a full tank, usually half or less and topped off with fresh fuel first time out. Previous boats only stored once will full tanks and I recall burning through that it didn't misfire but just felt off, like a little hard to start and not as snappy. The issues resolved themselves with fresh fuel. What gets me is that it runs poorly at idle and lower RPM (though didn't initially) but runs fine at higher throttle and RPM. Wondering if it's a fuel issue given how nasty the fuel in the carb and lines was on first start of the season. Thinking I should clean the carb properly, but not sure if I want to do that now or after burning through the rest of this 50 gal of old gas. Only burned 1/4 tank today and didn't top it off.
Thinking maybe I should change spark plugs (2 yrs on these now), fuel filter (1 yr old), and pull carb to thoroughly clean everything. Almost acting like junk or varnish in air bleeds or idle passages, like it's real lean at idle and just off idle. Wonder if the fuel is a problem though and hate to run a bunch of bad gas (if it is actually bad) through a freshly rebuilt carb. Thoughts?
Boat was hard to start this season, gas was nasty yellowish and didn't vaporize easily when spraying accelerator pump. Sprayed out carb and air bleeds without disassembling any of it and got it started. Fuel looks better but not fresh. Went out for the first time this season today and it started easy, mix of idle and 2400-2800 RPM cruising for about 20-30 mins then anchored ate lunch, chased wiring under dash since radio wouldn't work, then ran maybe 20 mins at 2500-3000 RPM and came back to idle... Stalled. Immediately restarted but misfiring badly. More throttle and misfiring badly but over maybe 1800-2000 RPM smoothed out. Ran the 20 minutes back to the ramp at 2500+ RPM and it ran fine even up to wide open. Slowly back to idle and it misfires starting somewhere around 2000 RPM or less and gets worse approaching idle, wants to stall but won't quite stall. Sprayed carb cleaner in all 8 air bleeds and after spraying one of the primary air bleeds it runs better but still misfiring. Called it a day and pulled out.
Once home I checked distributor cap and rotor, cleaned off some minor carbon tracking, sprayed air bleeds, adjusted idle mixture screws. It sounded like a 4 cylinder but eventually I got it idling normal. Revved up around 2500 and back to idle, and back to misfiring and sounding like a 4 banger. Lightly working accelerator pumps without opening throttle seemed to slightly smooth it out. Played with carb spraying it and adjusting mixture some more and it's still misfiring but sounds more like it has a big cam. In other words not a steady hit on half of them as before but random misfiring not as bad.
I've never stored this boat will a full tank, usually half or less and topped off with fresh fuel first time out. Previous boats only stored once will full tanks and I recall burning through that it didn't misfire but just felt off, like a little hard to start and not as snappy. The issues resolved themselves with fresh fuel. What gets me is that it runs poorly at idle and lower RPM (though didn't initially) but runs fine at higher throttle and RPM. Wondering if it's a fuel issue given how nasty the fuel in the carb and lines was on first start of the season. Thinking I should clean the carb properly, but not sure if I want to do that now or after burning through the rest of this 50 gal of old gas. Only burned 1/4 tank today and didn't top it off.
Thinking maybe I should change spark plugs (2 yrs on these now), fuel filter (1 yr old), and pull carb to thoroughly clean everything. Almost acting like junk or varnish in air bleeds or idle passages, like it's real lean at idle and just off idle. Wonder if the fuel is a problem though and hate to run a bunch of bad gas (if it is actually bad) through a freshly rebuilt carb. Thoughts?