Starting issue (+battery Q)

Hola,
my '85 2001 with 351/holley 4160 has been running like a dream for the last half year. Barely or no throttle needed upon cold start and just running great. Until recently; after I hadn't used it for 2 weeks while it sat in the water it first started up just fine, as always. But after it warmed up it wouldn't start anymore. Found some condensation/water in the distributor cap, dried it, and it started again. However, after that it only starts with full throttle (when warm, first start of the day is always perfect).

Another thing is I'm looking to get a new battery. I don't have a stereo, no lights or nothing, it's only used to start the engine. So if I'm correct I need a deep cycle battery(?), but how do you know if a battery is deep cycle or ehmm... the other type (forgot what it is)? I checked some batteries but never seen the type being mentioned.

Thanks!

Thanks Randy_in_Ohio. OK, so I already mixed it up, the battery-type.

Carb was rebuilt about a year ago. And the year before that. Hope that's not the solution this time.

TRIP wrote: Found some condensation/water in the distributor cap, dried it, and it started again. However, after that it only starts with full throttle Thanks!

Sander,
The opening the throttle all the way when warm is telling me you have a carb issue that's flooding the engine. When you shut down the engine, look down the carb throat and see if you have gas dripping. If so, I suggest a carb rebuild paying close attention to the needle and seats.

Just noticed there's two renew kits for Holley 4160's
kit 1 and
kit 2

Which one to get?!

What you want is a Group 65 battery. I think there are some other sizes that fit, but it came up recently. According to TRBenj, that size fits most CCs, it definitely fit my 93. The problem is the battery boxes aren't very tall. This group 65 battery is just an automotive starting battery and that's all you need.

Trip, did you check that your choke is opening up when the engine is warm. Apart from the flooding Pete mentioned, that's another thing to check.

Stay away from any marine battery they try to sell you. Not worth the extra $.

Well, a couple months later... Had the carb rebuilt, only to find out afterwards that one cable leading to the battery was almost through, probably causing the not-wanting-to-start-when-warm-issue. Still had some issues after the rebuilt and fixing that cable (backfire when accelerating) but then just didn't start anymore. Turned out to be the coil. Put one on that a mechanic brought; all problems solved. Starts up fine, no backfire, everything perfect. Until I changed the coil for a new one, same as I had before, a Bosch; engine didn't start anymore. Back to the borrowed coil; no problem. Tried another new coil; same story, no starting. The borrowed one is a high performance MSD Blaster coil. The one I had before worked fine, so why doesn't it anymore? I checked the gap on the sparkplugs, all 0.040 so that should be fine I guess. Anything else I can check? The easy solution is just getting one of those MSD coils myself (well not so easy, no idea where I could find one in Costa Rica), but apparently something is not OK so I'd rather find out what it is.
Any suggestions?
Thanks all!

Thanks for the info SNobsessed. I'd rather figure out why it won't start with a normal coil, but in case I'll need one of those blasters it's good info.

So, it will always start with the borrowed coil, but never start any other coil or even the coil you had in there before?

Hmmm, I'm wondering if that has something to do with the way they connect as far as wiring. Positives in the same place etc.?

No problem, I had one more idea about it as I was driving home last night, but then I didn't get a chance to get to my computer.

Is there any chance that your newer coils are "internally" resisted?

In other words, most of our boats came stock with an external resister. It's made out of ceramic and almost looks like a little piece of square chalk. Towards the back of the engine. Here's what it looks like:
http://www.nautiqueparts.com/resistorignition.aspx
The older coils are meant to have this. It steps down the ignition voltage a bit so it doesn't fry the points.

Now, some of the newer coils are internally resisted. If you're running your wires through the external resister and then the coil is resisted again internally, the overall effect may be too little voltage.

Here's one picture I have from Pete and TRBenj regarding ignition wiring. I know Tim has another as well. This one shows both ways, to wire up the ignition. The "EI" version skips the ballast resiter:

It does have an external resistor. Electronic ignition. I'd have to check with the store to find out about the type of coil. Then again, my old one and one of the 2 new ones that I've tried are Bosch 'red'; supposedly no internal resistance.