Fine in idle, terrible when in gearSN2001

Does it stutter or pop back through the carb when you give it the throttle or is it just low on power? Have you put a timing light on it and checked base timing and advance? What plugs did you install? Heat range? Does your distributor still have points? Are they set correctly? (gap, dwell) How fresh is your fuel in the tank? Reading your post above it sounds like you checked fuel pressure and delivery. Before replacing the distributor or coil you should replace your plug wires and distributor cap. How many hours does the motor have on it? If all of the above are good you may want to start checking the mechanical condition of your engine. Good luck! Write back if you need more help.

Didn't put a timing light on it yet. Not sure how, but I can order a advance timing light. Would the timing cause this issue? I mean, fine in nuetral terrible in gear?

Your engine needs 3 things in order to run right. (1) The correct fuel/air mixture; (2) adequate spark from the ignition and at the right time; and (3) compression (mechanical soundness of the engine. It sounds like you have verified that your fuel system is good. Just to make sure, you can loosen the fuel line to the carb and check fuel delivery. Disable the ignition and crank the engine over while letting the fuel line feed into a jar or something. You should get about 1/2 pint or so in 15 seconds of cranking time. If you have that with a new carb you should be okay for fuel. Also check that your choke valve is opening fully after the engine is warm.

Next check for adequate spark. Remove your coil wire from the distributor. Let it rest so the you have a gap of at least 1/2 inch from the engine block. The spark plug gap is only .035" but that is when the spark is under compression. Compression tends to blow a week spark out. So you want to test your ignition to see how strong it is. Thus the 1/2" gap. With ignition system on, crank the engine over. You should get a consistent blue spark from the coil to ground (eng. block). You should also hear a snapping sound as the spark occurs. You can open that gap up and see how "strong" your spark is. HEI systems will shoot a gap across more than 6 inches in open air (no compression). Next is your timing. Get a good timing light (or borrow one) with a variable strobe delay (knob on the back with timing marks). Check your base timing and check timing advance. Retarded timing affects power big time. Overly advanced timing will cause your engine to try to force the pistons down in the opposite direction as they are coming up on the compression stroke (in effect trying to make the engine run backwards and fighting itself). If you need specs on timing, let me know.    

Now,....if all the above has been verified and is good,...it's time to brake out the compression gage. If you've never done a compression test, you'll want to get a little training on this. It's a little more than just screwing the hose/gage into the spark plug hole and cranking the engine over. Let me know if you get this far and need more help.

Recap.

1983 SN 2001 351W with about 670 hours
Ran fine last year according to others

Runs well in nuetral, put it in gear and she wants to die, but doesn't, more just limps up to about 20 mph slowly.

Thought secondaries were not opening so replace with 4160 Holley marine from Carbcareusa.

Thought might be fuel, fuel/water sep, fuel pump, so replaced All New.

Replaced plugs Autolite for 351W from skidim

anti-syphon valve clean, works well

Checked fuel with ignition off, it pumped at least a half pint in 5 seconds.

Check spark at coil (between coil and block), plenty of spark.

So, I need to wait for the new cap, rotor, plug wires from skidim. Also timing light.

Well, I'm off to work. I will check back tonight.

Advance the base timing significantly and give it a go. Take your timing light, 9/16" wrench and screw driver with you on the water and test it out. If the performance is there when you advanc the base timing, then look for faulty advance mechanism and/or leave the base timing advanced...but not to the point of hard starting and detonation.

This is assuming everything else checks out as listed/mentioned previously.

eyedsn2001 wrote: Didn't put a timing light on it yet. Not sure how, but I can order a advance timing light. Would the timing cause this issue? I mean, fine in nuetral terrible in gear?

Absolutely, YES!

By the way, I bought my Nautique 2001 at Ron's Marine / Mid Ohio. Mine ran fine for the test drive, but then I experienced the same problem as you when I got it home.

OK, it must be something simple. I'm sure you'll get it resolved. Keep us posted and good luck!

Ron's Marine was great to me, and I don't blame them either. It was frustrating driving from Boston to Streetsboro, OH and back to find out I had engine problems @567 hours.

Ken

I am not a mechanic in any way, shape, or form, but any chance it could be the transmission? If it is not performing well, could it create what you are describing.

UPDATE:

I received my new prestolite cap, rotor, and pcm plug wires.

I checked each spark plug gap to be correct.

I checked and rechecked plug order with plug wires to distributor.

I replaced rotor cap and wires.

Started in the driveway on fake-a-lake and ran so-so in idle. It would rev, but I did seem to notice a hesitation, and motor shake. So, this may have been there all the time. Almost seems like all cylinders are not firing.

Put it in to gear in driveway and it reved just as it did in nuetral.

Took it down to the dock. On the water, under load, it stalled as soon as I put it into gear. I got it restarted. It reved decent in nuetral. Put it into gear and it ran like it wasn't firing all cylinders.

So, here I am.

New plugs
New plug wires
New cap
New rotor
New carb (carbcareusa)
New fuel/water separater
New fuel pump.
New anti-syphon valve.

Good spark at coil.
Plenty of fuel delivery when cranking (ignition disabled to test fuel delivery)
Choke opens when warm fine


I ordered a timing light a week ago. I should receive it Monday or Tuesday.

I am running out of ideas. I hope it is only a timing issue. I just don't understand how it could be fine timing one year and horrible the next? It's a timing chain so it should stay. The makes me feel that the Distributor itself is not advancing. It's like, not all of the plugs are getting sufficient spark. I will post what I find when I check the timing.

I will set to 6 degrees before top dead center and 600 rpm. Then what? Try to manually advance it on the water and see if it runs better? If so, order a new distributor? I can't wait to use the little time off work I have enjoying this boat instead of tinkering on it.

Don

stang72, do I turn the distributor clockwise to advance?

If I look at the top of the distributor, standing above the ski pylon, Number 1 cylinder would be at about 1 o'clock ( with 12 o'clock being closer to the carb) From there going clockwise would be 1 3 7 2 6 5 4 8
The tag on the motor says firing order should be 1 8 4 5 6 2 7 3. Am I missing something here? It seems correct just in the reverse order. If I take them couterclockwise it would be 1 8 4 5 6 2 7 3, which is what the tag reads, Should this be the other direction???

Yes the resistor is bypassed. Firing order is as in above post. Not sure about timing, still waiting for timing light. I've gone over the wires about 50 times.

eyedsn2001 wrote: If I look at the top of the distributor, standing above the ski pylon, Number 1 cylinder would be at about 1 o'clock ( with 12 o'clock being closer to the carb) From there going clockwise would be 1 3 7 2 6 5 4 8 The tag on the motor says firing order should be 1 8 4 5 6 2 7 3. Am I missing something here? It seems correct just in the reverse order. If I take them couterclockwise it would be 1 8 4 5 6 2 7 3, which is what the tag reads, Should this be the other direction???

Did you pull the distributor when you upgraded to electronic? The firing order 1-8-4-5-6-2-7-3 is correct in the counterclockwise direction when viewing it as you described. From memory when I did my conversion I think the #1 should be around 2 O:clock not 1, if you pulled the distributor maybe it went back in one tooth off. If you're a tooth off you wouldn't even be able to see the timing marks when you throw a light on it.

I would pull #1 plug and get the motor to TDC and check to see if the position of the rotor is where you think # 1 is. I just went through this last week, I installed the conversion kit and when starting my engine for the first time I had it 180 out. Took me about an hour of head scratching and my neighbors help but we got it figured out.

I hate to mention this to you, Don, but you have the exact same issues that I had last year. I replaced all the fuel and electrical parts. My timing advance was fine, my timing was perfect. I engine would start fine, idle fine, rev. fine, but as soon as I put it in gear and accelerate it would buck and lose power. My end result was that two of my cylinders were worn and two more were on their way out. I had so much loss of compression that I was only firing well on four good cylinders. The gas was slipping by the rings and mixing with the oil. My dipstick would blow out due to the "blow by". I replaced my engine with a remanufactured engine and that solved everything. Get yourself a compression or leak down test!!

Good Luck,

Ken