Hard to Start

Hi Pete,

I'm pretty sure my problem was resolved by by-passing that resistor. Thanks for the confirmation on the redundancy. The engine starts with the throttle straight up every time now.

Carb (Holley Marine 4160 - 5 years old) looks very clean and seems to be functioning well.

That was a funny thread on the vapor lock.

Thanks for being such a great resource to the CC community.

Pete,

The external porcelain ballast resistor (near the coil) was removed several years ago when we put the MSD Distributor and MSD Coil in. I’ve had hard to start issues in the past but it has been due to other factors; such as a faulty neutral safety switch and bad gas.

Since all my basic stuff was covered (fuel, fire, compression) and I haven't made any changes to the boat for several years I needed a mechanics help with this one. I am not positive what the component was named but I attached a picture for identification purposes. The mechanic referred to it as a voltage resistor and after speaking with the MSD tech line believed it was redundant. The yellow pencil points to the component mounted on the inside of the voltage regulator bracket.

-mq

Had the same problem two weeks ago.

'79 Nautique, 351w, MSD Ready to Run Distributor, MSD Coil.

We had compression, gas, and spark - however the spark was weak due to voltage dropping in the system. Once we traced the problem with a meter we were able to bypass a redundant component. Voltage restored - stronger spark - no more hard starting.

Ran perfect all vacation with lots of starts.

As we were trouble shooting the issue someone with an older malibu was pretty convinced that we were having vapor lock. His suggestion was to shield the fuel lines with aluminum foil. We didn't need to go this route.

Thanks for the advise. I am going to the lake Thursday and I will check both of those and let you know what happens.

Was this a problem before you installed the new ignition? What exactly did you change and what brands? I had a similar problem on my boat. It would run just fine, I'd leave the dock on a hot day, pull a wakeboarder for a while, and then when I turned the boat off, it would crank and crank but not start. When I grabbed the coil to check the wiring it was so hot I burned my hand (it overheated and stopped producing spark). I have since replaced the coil with an MSD High Vibration Blaster coil and that fixed the problem.