Striper Blues
Petty Officer 2nd Class
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2003
- Messages
- 135
So the saga goes.....<br /><br />I bought a 1989 25' Grady White Sailfish recently, mostly because it had a brand new (not rebuilt) 460 Ford long block going in it. Along with that went new manifolds, alternator water pump filters and overall tune up items. We sea trialed it in October and it ran fine but we didn't take it to full throttle because of the 2 hrs on engine. Ran perfectly.<br /><br />It was winterized and stored for the winter. Last month we flushed it out started her and then changed the plugs and oil. I launched her a couple weeks back took her out and ran fine. After about 10 hours of easy does it at different rpms, I opened her up for a trip across Long Island Sound. The first sign of a problem was that the max rpms only went to about 3800 WOT, which was about 21 knots. This boat should push 30 at 4400-4800 rpms at WOT. <br /><br />I checked her over and discovered the vaccum secondaries on the Holley 4bbl weren't opening but when I opened them manually it stood right up. The next time out, same issue but this tije it would run up to 3800 cruise for a couple minutes then start dieing out until I backed off. This continued to happen the next couple times out and eventually worsened to the point that if I didn't throttle back she would stall. I could restart and repeat on demand. <br /><br />I elected to swap out the carb as I didn't want an old carb causing issues on a new engine. ....You guessed it no luck. Of course it continued to sound like it was starving for fuel and it began to happen a lower rpms. I have since gone through the entire fuel system. Checked vent, tank (whistle clean) new filters and water separater and yesterday a new fuel pump. All for naught....ouch.<br /><br />Now it has worsened to the point where once it is warm it will start bogging and popping through the carb. If I let it run it will run itself to a stall. Pump the gas and it starts, but I now literally am limping back to the dock at under 5 knots or it stalls. <br /><br />Bear in mind that in neutral I rev it to any rpm and it will run flawlessly all day. Once its hot and in gear it will get worse and worse until it stalls at anything over 1000 rpms or so.<br /><br />Just to thicken the plot and make it a bit juicier for you experts who love challenges. I have in the last two days. Rechecked vent and fuel flow (remember no problem in neutral and floscan shows plenty of flow), change the cap, rotor, condensor, points, wires, ignition coil, spark plugs. Today at the suggesting of the local mechanic I ran a direct lead from positive side of battery to positive side of coil to eliminate the whatchamacallit that regulates voltage?? to coil...in any event nothing. It continues to get worse and now it is bogging/popping upon acceleration only 5 minutes after she starts and gets warm. It runs fine a low cruise speed (no bog/pop) but only very low speed, like 4 knots, 1000 rpm.<br /><br />Oh yeah, I rechecked the timing 10 degrees BTDC, dwell at 29, etc. etc.<br /><br />I 've checked the ESA switch which would suggest normal operation at idle/gear engagement. Just enough stutter to ease shifting.<br /><br />I've reached the end of my knowledgebase and only hope your's includes the answer.... I guess I'm searching for some other type of defective electrical apparatus, switch or thingamajig that might on a rare occassion decay after warming up when it gets old.....<br /><br />Please put me out of my misery......ugh....I'm getting ready to give the key to the local mechanic and let him take over the mystery pursuit for a couple weeks.... Like I said you couldn;t make this story up on a bet....yikes....
I'll tell you what made a HUGE difference and fixed my problem though is a 60-70 dollar electronic ignition from pertronix. Idles smoother, starts easier, and I can now acheive WOT which I could never do before, it would always bog. Also after sitting in the water it would bog for a while for some reason, and it seems to have fixed that too. On a brand new engine like yours, I would think it'd be a very worthy upgrade anyway to get the electronic ignition....especially if you didn't put the ballast resistor back to the positive side of your coil. (which will burn up your points very prematurely) The pertronix will take the full 12 volts and provide a stronger spark as well.
