BassMan11

Got the boat out for an hour tonight. The wife and I in the boat. That's how Honda's are supposed to run.

Hey Guys, First off I am on my second good douse of seafoam in my tank and it hasn't made a lick of difference. He had also checked the fuel lines and delivery and it seems to be fine. I had to work late last night so I didn't get a chance to run the boat but my mechanic buddy did and I think the problem is fixed. He had the carbs apart this weekend and said they looked immaculate so he decided to drill out the jets. Now..... he knows that isn't the "proper" thing to do but he has actually had to do this on 4 other Honda motors in the last 10 years when nothing else short of ordering new carbs would work. He literately took a drill bit that he could thread through the jet hole and bored it out a tiny tiny bit. The boat now jumps up on plane immediately and is hitting 24mph at 3/4 throttle while wide open hits the rev limiter (prop to small now I assume). It looks like my troubles might just be coming to an end with this motor. I will need to get myself and the wife in the boat to get the true performance and speed. Regardless it's a step in the right direction.

Well he is pretty reputable. He has worked at a major boat repair shop here in Ottawa for probably 10 years and he has done work to my old 1978 9.9 seahorse and had her running like a top so I do trust him. I think he would be trying to save me money. All this talk about how great Honda's are just makes me more frustrated. lol. The thing should be bullet proof.

Got a call from my buddy the mechanic today. He pulled the carbs again and cleaned them thoroughly and made sure the jets were clear. Told me that lots of fuel is getting to the carbs so it doesn't look like a fuel line issue to that point. If it still didn't run right he talked about possibly drilling out the jets a size bigger?... I guess that is something he had to do before on a Honda 25 he was working on that was having a similar issue. Going to take her for a rip tonight to see if the problem is still there. Fingers crossed.

The guy wasn't going to fit in in the new Babcock culture that will try to be instilled in this team. It will all start with hard work and 2 way play. But man o man are the leafs going to be bad next year. Yikes

Tank of Seafoam is going through it now. I will get it fixed for free one way or another. I am glad it is narrowed down to something not major. Thanks to everyone who has given advise thus far. It is much appreciated.

Thanks guys. I'll get my mechanic to look at it. I took it to a marina to have the carbs cleaned but I guess they weren't cleaned good enough? Paid a pretty penny for it as well. Makes me a little upset but at least the problem is diagnosed now and I can just get it fixed properly.

Hey Guys, Got out on the water this weekend and played around with the motor. After reading a few reports I saw someone say if you played around with the choke it might do something. I did that and immediatley the boat launched up to 20mph. Is this a carb / jet issue? At least I was up on plane with two people!

Nice looking pup.

Next week I will be troubleshooting fuel components. Thanks again for everyone's help. I will keep you posted.

The prop was the original prop for the motor when I bought the motor. I also bought a brand new prop 1 size small but the motor sounded and felt the exact same. Hopefully it is as easy and changing the fuel line(s).

I agree Bill..... reading just about everything I can on the interweb the general consensus is they are pretty good. Plus I talked to my mechanic buddy yesterday and there is a feature on the pull start Honda outboards that lower the compression when starting so it is easier to pull so that's why I don't see anything near 200. It's called auto decompression I believe. Going to dump a bunch of seafoam in the tank and give it a good run this weekend. Next week I will start looking at flushing all the fuel lines and possibly change the fuel pump. I think we have narrowed it down to either a fuel issue or an air intake issue.

Thanks Pete. That's what I figured. My boat is 1000 with 2 people included. I was looking to get close to 30 so when I was struggling to get 15-17 by myself I knew something was up.

Didn't have the room to pull out the boat and throw the muffs on. But I did a compression test on all three cylinders. Top - 136 Middle - 133 Bottom - 135 Are these numbers ok from a cold start? Can I rule out compression being an issue?

So open the throttle in neutral when testing?

OK i'll check that tonight. Hopefully it will be up around those numbers. What numbers does the compression start to be a concern? 150-100? Thanks for everyone's help so far. I hopefully didn't buy a lemon.

Going to do a compression test tonight to rule out that problem (hopefully). Any guess on what the readings should be? If the compression checks out then it must be a fuel delivery issue. Agreed you can't really fully test the motor unless it is ran out on the lake. You can only do so much in a tank at a shop.

That is something my mechanic said he would check. It looks like a new belt so maybe the timing is off? Wouldn't the motor idle rough though if the timing was off?

Pulled each plug and the motor would run rougher. Not a carb issue. It must be fuel. Is your fuel filter supposed to be full of fuel at idle? Mine looks almost empty until I squeeze the pump on the hose.

I have tried 2 different size props (9 and 10) and the motor sounds the exact same..... this is going by a prop chart. Correct I am in the centre hole. Front end is up and I am about 3/4 on plane. It just feels I am missing that last gear at wot.

That is correct. The mechanic is actually a friend of mine that works at a place here in Ottawa. He has looked at it again and thought it was a prop issue (which I replaced) but it didn't fix it. The motor is defiantly a short shaft and I have the cav plate at the proper location after doing some research.

It is a manual trim and I have tried all of them and it doesn't make a difference. The Boat is a 14' Sylvan and I would think at least 25mph would be my target speed. Glen, The carbs are opening all the way but I would agree that it does sound like shes not firing on all cylinders but I thought maybe that is how a 4 stroke sounds (my first one)?. Either that or a fuel delivery issue would be my guess.

Gentlemen, Finally getting out with the new rig I noticed right away the motor has not been running right. Fully loaded with 2 people the boat weighs 1000lbs and I am only getting about 15mph at full throttle. This can't be right can it? I have already brought it in to get a full tune up and all 3 carbs cleaned. Also I have changed the prop from a 10 pitch to a 9 pitch to see if this would increase the RPM's but it still sounds bogged down. Anyone have any idea's of what else I should be looking at? Any information or advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.

If you wait until after this weekend I will give a quick review on the Elite 7 HDI as I picked one up earlier this year. From what I have read yes, some of them do shut off sometimes but other run fine with no issues. The big issue is if you are really going to use it heavily for the GPS mapping with Navionics that it might not be the unit you want. Lots of reviews say that the mapping is super slow and the maps take a long time to load while at top speed (excess of 25mph). The rest of the unit seems to work great and gets good reviews.

Just Picked this up last year. 2008 GMC Sierra 1500 All-Terrain extended cab 6.5 bed / 5.3L V8.