225 Johnson Running Lean

[Blakek25]

I am trying to chase down a problem with my 1998 Johnson 225 outboard that is running lean at all speeds. When at idle it will occasionally sneeze and die. When I try to get on plane, it often will stall and will die as I give it throttle. In these cases, I have to hit the primer to get on plane. Also, I shut the ignition off while running on plane and pulled the sparkplugs and they look lean at high speed as well. I have attached a picture of a sparkplug. They all looked about the same. They look lean to me, but I was not sure exactly what they should look like.

A little history on the motor. It has had this problem for a while, and it blew up earlier this spring because it was running lean. I rebuilt it myself and tried to fix the lean problem by flattening out the surface of the carbs where they mount to the throttle bodies. They are better than they were, but the edge of a 0.010 inch feeler gauge will still barley fit in (see pictures). I was not sure if this much would be a problem?
I also found a warped fitting on my fuel filter that was allowing air to be pulled into the fuel. After I fixed this, I now have good fuel pressure and no air being sucked into the fuel. I had previously gone through the carbs, and they were clean, but I went ahead and rebuilt all of them anyway. This was a few months ago by now though.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on what else I need to check. I am about out of ideas.

Thanks

 

[Bosunsmate]

Spray some engine start fluid around the engine to check for leaks. If the engine speeds up then theres the leak.
Id be putting some gasket sealant on those throttle bodies.
Sounds like its all your sparkplugs, which rules out top and bottom crankshaft seals

 

[Faztbullet]

Index flywheel and check timing on each cylinder. Check pack for double firing. When your running near WOT hold in choke and RPM picks up look at weak VRO output.

 

[Blakek25]

Thanks for the input, I will give it a shot and see what I can figure out.

 

[Blakek25]

I did all of the items suggested above as well as re link and syncing the carbs and adjusting the throttle cam pick up point to where it is supposed to be. it no longer stalls when I accelerate, but sometimes just bogs down, which I assume means it is too rich. I think I can probably adjust the idle screws to fix this issue though. It has also not lean sneezed since.

I did another high speed shutdown and this is what two of the spark plugs looked like. I was just wondering if they look ok, or if there may be more issues that I need to address. I am not sure exactly what they are supposed to look like.

Thanks for the input, it defiantly runs better than it did before.

 

[Bosunsmate]

They look ok to me. Bog down could be a few things, sometimes you cant find out what that is until it gets really bad ie not intermittent but much more constantly bad. If it was me id just keep a closer eye on things and maybe she will improve some more