What do you think?

[chuckwagonsam]

I finally got my boat out for it's first run after doing the needed repairs that we could find to the 280 out drive and the AQ131D motor. At WOT only got to bout 3800 rpms, with some backfire. We're thinking timing. But before we went to far the distributor cap cracked and ended the day with a tow to shore. Found metal shaving in the distributor & cap. New cap and was clean when installed. Has solid state installed. Will pull distributor and look for problem. Any thoughts?

 

[Don S]

Re: What do you think?

Sounds like you didn't have the cap and rotor installed properly, or the bushings for the distributor shaft are shot allowing the rotor to wobble around and hit the cap.
Did you reset the timing when you installed the electronic unit? You should have, they don't set themselves.

 

[chuckwagonsam]

Re: What do you think?

The electronic unit was already there, but we should have checked timing. Out of the water the engine sounded fine, totally different with the backpressure of the water.

 

[Don S]

Re: What do you think?

Out of the water the engine sounded fine, totally different with the backpressure of the water.

That sounds like timing to me, at least a place to start.