Way2slow

I haven't run a small motor in many years but if I had to guess, I would say about 2.5 -2.8 mpg at WOT. If you are concerned about fuel milage, you need to look at a DFI or Four Stroke. However, even with those, no motor is going to get very good milage at WOT, but DFI/4strokes will give the best at midrange speeds. About 3,000 rpm will give the best mileage but 4,500 will do pretty good and get you there with a reasonable amount of speed. Best way to check it is fill it full, take an extra five gallons, run a known distance of 10 miles or so at WOT and then using the extra five gallons fill it back up again and see how much it takes and do the math. Use a gps if you have one

With that motor, not much you can do performance wise that would be cost effective. About the only bolt on mods are 1 3/8" carbs and early, higher compression heads and and with those you might see a penny's worth of gain for the dollars spent. Anything more than that will require a tear down and porting, which because of the exhaust it has, will give very little and WILL take away hole shot. You can easily spend a couple of grand and not gain 3 mph. You best bet is working on setup. Those older Rangers like to ride heavy in the water and getting a setup that gives good bow lift can give you more bang for the buck than anything you could do to the motor. BTW, max rpm on that motor is 5,500. Those motors also DO NOT like four bladed props. One other bit of food for thought, has the boat been stored out doors? Those early boats used open cell flotation foam that can become water logged, adding as much as a couple of hundred pounds to the weight. When water got in the open cell foam, it did not want to come back out.

If I remember right, clockwise should be lean, CC should be rich. Depends on the version carb. They used to put a L and R at each end of the scale. Lean spit it when, at low speed/idle, the motor makes a cough like sound and try to cut of or cut off. When too rich the motor will be running without the giving the cough but running rough

It adjust your idle mixture. If the motor is lean spitting and cutting off at idle, you increase richen it up a little, if it loading up and shutting cutting off you lean it up. Normally, you will have to increase the mixture when you first start it to get it to idle, then after it warms up or you've run it some distance, you will have to lean if back a little to get a good smooth idle. If you do a lot of low speed trolling or moving around, You will appreciate it. One little note, there are some packing washers under the nut around the stem, if the stem is loose and turns very easy, you need to tighten the nut just a little or it will suck air by them and makes it very difficult to adjust and maintain smooth idle. The knob is also held on by a tappered screw so if you take the center screw out, the knob can be repositioned for better adjustment. Snugg the screw down pretty good to keep the knob from slipping on the shaft. I just realized you said it was an 80's so it probably does not have the knob, but does the same thing as what I mentioned. Just adjust it so it gives you a good smooth idle when warm. It's better to leave it just a tick on the rich side so it's less likely to lean spit on the cool mornings.

Wait now, Time Out!!!! You left the stern light on to run it down, to give it a good charge???? First, you NEVER, EVER want to run a battery all the way down! All you are doing is destroying what was once probably a good battery. You should never run a 12V battery below 12.1VDC and will get a lot longer life if you don't take it below 12.3. How are you connecting to the batteries to charge them. It sounds like you are charging them in parallel since that's the only way you can charge both batteries at once with a single stage charger. If so, they are going to read the same voltage. Also, you can just about double those times I said it would take to charge. How do you have you're boat wired? Normally the nav lites and all accessories run off the cranking battery because the motor is recharging it some when it's running. Only the TM is run off the TM battery. Are you running the batteries in series to run a 24V TM and also using one of them as the cranking battery? If so, that's risky business and both still need to be the same type, style and size.

The best is debateable, each is going to have there own opinion, but there are several very good batteries. I like Trojan, and Deka batteries. Interstates, Diehards and a couple of others get good reviews also. Wally Worlds are as good of an enexpensive battery. Start getting into a lot of those off name imports and you don't know what you're getting. Wally World batteries do good for many because they don't know how to care for them and it's a waste of money to buy a top quality battery that going to get ruined half way through it's life cycle.

Use at least your 6 amp to charge it (as soon as you get home from the lake). It is not good to charge a battery too slow. The battery must gas some to keep the electrolite mixed, if too slow, the electrolite will stratify. After it has been on the 6 amp for 8 - 10 hours or so, then connect your 1.5 amp maintainer and leave it. That's only if you have a quality maintainer that holds about 13.2 VDC when fully charged. Many of the cheaper maintainers will not do this so you need to fully charge the battery before even connecting them. 13.17 VDC is the recommended float voltage for most deep cycle batteries. I've seen cheap maintainers that won't even hold 12.8 VDC.

At 1.5 amps, you would need to charge a fully run down 115 amphour battery about 75 hours At 6 amps, you need to charge it about 20 hours. What many people don't understand "SLOW" is in the battery world means approx 10% of the rated capacity. 10% of the rated capacity is the recommended charge rate for most all batteries. CCA/MCA means absolutely nothing for deep cycle batteries. True deep cycles will not even have these ratings on them. Amphour or reserve minutes are the numbers you look for in deep cycle batteries. Even those can be misleading because companies will use different rating critirea. Amphour can be a 20 hour rating (which is the most common) but can be as little as 5 hour (you will usually only find this on high quality, industrial batteries). Reserve minutes is usually based on a 25 amp draw but some will use a lower draw to make their numbers look better I think you will find the Maxx batteries from Wal-Mart will usually have 12.84 VDC fully charged. Specific gravity will be usaully be 1.280 - 1.300, if they are properly charged and cared for.

It might be, usually it's because it's not getting enough fuel, but the primer solenoid my not be fully shutting the fuel off. I would start by doing a complete check of the primer. Normally, there are three lines going to it, one large and two small. the large is the supply line from the fuel pump, the two small are the primer lines. Pull one or both the small lines off and crank it over some. No fuel shoud come out of the primer valve, if it does, get a new diaphram and cap assy. If no fuel comes out, try again and press the key in, this should cause a stream of fuel to come out. If not, make sure the solenoid is working. If it is, get a diaphram and cap assy. If you install new parts, check it again when done. If all that checks good, your next step is going to be the carbs. It's very possible you have fuel leaking by one of the needle/seat assy. Need for you to check one more thing. Do this on the hose just in case it does start. Crank it over for a few seconds and then take a cople of spark plugs out. If they are wet, you are either getting too much fuel or cold spark. If they are dry, you're not getting fuel to them. If dry, open the butterflys and spray some premixed gas in the throats and try it again. As long as a plug is dry, there's not enough fuel getting to it. If they are wet, you're getting too much fuel to them or not a hot enough spark.

OK, Try manually priming it like I mentioned and post if that worked or not. A lot of people press and release the primer, which really does nothing. The engine has to be turning for the fuel pump to pump and the fuel pump has to be pumping for the primer to work. Are you running the oil injection?

Too bad you're not close to middle GA, I don't usually work on others motors, but I could probably change you're mind about wanting to get rid of if just because you can't get it started. It probably needs a proper linc and sinc for starters, but let me tell you one thing to try. After it sits to the point it's hard to start, before doing anything, pull the engine cover off. You can do this before launching the boat. I would recommend doing the first couple of tries on the hose to get the feel of things and how many times for pump the bulb. Pump the primer bulb until it's firm. Now look on your primer valve on the side of the engine and you will see a little red lever, flip it up. Now start pumping the primer bulb again, pump it about six times (full squeezes)for starters, flip the lever back down and try starting the engine. If it starts, within a reasonable number turns, they stay with that number of squeezes. what's probably happening is the crankcase is drying out and you are not getting enough fuel in it to fire the engine, it takes a lot. This could be because of a bad diaphram in the primer valve, or the valve is not even working when you press the key for the primer (choke), or a couple of other things going on. Are you running the oil injection? If not, I can give you a sure cure if the primer circuit is working. By the way, I think you might be wishing (a lot) about getting $2,500 for your motor. One other question, are you holding the key in to prime/choke it while you're cranking it or just pressing and releasing it then cranking the engine?

I think I have a couple of Team Stratos decals they went across the rear window. I had a license plate from years ago but left it on my last Stratos in it's in Texas. Don't know if they still do that kind of stuff anymore. They have a frame on their websit but no tags.

Say you run one 105 amphour battery and you run it down in four hours, if you run two 105 amphour batteries in parallel, they will probably last about 10 hours. While yes, you can run any two 12 volt batteries in parallel, they are a lot more efficient if you run simialar batteries.

I hate to burst your bubble but you are already planning on ruining it as soon shortly after installing it. You can't replace just one battery, they both need to be replaced. Put a new battery in a series setup and it will be doing all the work and will probably kill it before the end of the season

No DO NOT open the the caps, that only causes excess water loss and gets corrosive acid inside your battery compartment. A battery is suppose to be making gas bubbles when charging, that's required to properly charge the battery. Excessive gas, rapid boil means that cell is overcharging for some reason, too high of a charge rate or a bad cell. 8 - 15 amps is a normal charge rate and will not cause the cells to gas excessively unless the cell is bad. What causes a bad cell to boil over is they no longer have the capacity they were suppose to. For instance, a 105 Ah battery, each cell is a 105 Ah, but because of sulphation or other reason, it may only be a 10 Ah cell. A 105 Ah cell charges at 8 - 15 amps with no problem, but a 10 Ah cell can only handle about two amps max, so when your charger is hitting it at it's normal rate, it's boiling the crap out of it.

Wy me? Personnaly, I think you waited to long to get an onboard charger. I would have to guess you ruined the batteries before that, but before jumping to that conclussion, you will need to check the batteries. Start by charging them to a full charge, or as full as they will get, hopefully they will charge up enough for the charger will cut off. Either use your on board or a sererate charger. Using a DVM, after it has charger some, take a reading across the battery and make sure the charger is charging, minimum of 13.8 VDC but should be closer to 14.6 VDC. Once the battery is fully charged let it sit at least a few hours, better overnight, then using a DVM, check and see if it has 12.6 - 12.8 volts. Install the battery as the cranking battery, if not already with the DVM connected across it. Pull the Emergency Kill Cord so the motor won't start. Now, using the key switch, crank the motor over for about 15 seconds while watching the DVM, and see how much voltage drop it has. It should not go below 10.7 VDC, if it does, the battetry is no good. It's only marginal if it drops to 10.7. You don't need it on the hose to do these checks because the motor should not be able to start with the kill cord pulled. If they are still under warrenty, then take them back if they fail this load test. Oh, the reason I said you probably ruined them before connecting the onboard. The batteries should be charged every six weeks or so while not in use. They also should be charged within 12 hours after use, and not just wait to the day before you get ready to go to the lake.

The rooster tail is the prop wash. Many use it as a guide line on how well a boat is setup. You trim the boat for proper bow lift, not by the rooster tail. If you don't have enough up trim the boat is going to be running heavy in the water, wetting to much hull, it will never make full rpm or speed. Too much up trim and the prop can start to cavitate, you will actually hear a different sound from the motor. You will also see an rpm increase with no increase in speed. This can also make one chine walk a whole lot more and hard to control the chine walk. With a good setup, the motor heigth will be right and will be trimed so it's about 90 degrees vertical to the surface of the water, the boat will have just the right amount of bow lift so the hull is running with minimum wetting. The prop will be giving max forward push, pushing straight through the water, making a low roster tail that's about three - three and half feet high. If the boat has a wrong setup, like not have enough setback, the wrong style prop, motor height wrong etc, it can take more up trim to get enough bow lift to get the hull up. Instead of just pushing forward through the water, the prop is having to push at downward angle as well as forward. All the energy lost pushing downward means slower top speeds. This also directs the prop wash at an upward angle, creating a much higher rooster tail, and more chance of cavitation, more lost power. If you look at boats runnning down the lake and throwing tall rooster tails, you will see most of their motors are very noticably over trimed, way beyound verticle with the water. This is because very few want to invest the time and money, or have the know how, to properly setup a boat. Don't think for a second your dealer did it for you.

Put your meter across the battery terminals and try to start it. It should not drop below about 10.7 volts. I run large enough cranking batteries they don't drop anywhere near that, but that's about the max one should drop. Even dropping that much, it will probably knock all you're electronics off when you crank it. That's only if you want to spend the time, you can bet that battery is bad. I never run cranking batteries but three years in any of my vehicles and boats. Batteries are just too dang cheap compared to the problems and grief they can cause to try and get that last little nickles worth out of them.

Vapoer lock is not a problem with cold motors. This is caused when the fuel in the fuel lines gets so hot it evaporates, causing air pockets in the fuel line. There is another problem caused heat soak, but this was not yours either. Heat soak usually occurs when making a long WOT run and cutting the engine off all most as soon as you get to your spot. The heat of the engine evaporates the fuel out of the crank case. When you get ready to go again, it can cause the engine to be hard to start or bog when you first put the power to it. As I said though, neither of these problems occur on cold or just warmed engines. As for the air leak you heard, not sure but there should be nothing about the carb that could be holding pressure. The vent hole would have to be plugged and all the jets would have to be plugged and the needle holding full pump pressure in the carb, very, very unlikely for all these things to happen at once.

I thought you said one of the first thing he did the first time was clean the carbs?? If that was the case, I hope you're not paying this guy much. No way the carbs could have had that crap in them, that quick if they had been previously cleaned. The carbs should have been the very first thing done, and then a good, proper, linc and sync done when putting them back on. I will bet a dollor to a doughnut it's not setup properly.

There is no way you should run an electric pump just to keep from pumping the bulb. You either have to run one, or not run one. If the pump is in line, it has to be running or there is a good chance not enough fuel is gonna go through it to run the motor at full throttle. The next problem I suspect is you're talking about one of those cheap pulsing pumps. Many of those are not rated anywhere near enough flow rate or pressure to properly run the motor. Even on that 85, I would run a pump rated for at least 30 gph @ 6 psi. On my V6's I run Carter pumps rated at 74 gph @ 7.5 psi Even with your setup though, I doubt that's your problem, if it's delivering any fuel, it's not go affect the motors running at idle and low rpm. Now if it idles fine and runs good if you slowly give it a little throttle and then just starts bogging down as you give it more, then you can suspect fuel delivery problems. That's easy enough to check with a cheap 15 psi pressure guage. You should have a minimum 5 - 5.5 psi at the carburators. Remember, any cheap guage will work, pressure is pressure, doesn't matter if it's water, air, gas, etc.

My first suggestion would be to find another mechanic. Some of the things you are saying makes me feel he doesn't know his a** for a hole in the ground. The advance is totally mechanical and you only have to look to see if it's advancing, plus a quick check with a timing light will tell you for sure and how much. The early carbs are not easy to clean and a pain in the butt to get balanced and complete linc and sinc done, not sure you're guy has the know how to do them. A motor running good when it's out of gear and being rev'd up means very little. Without a load on one, there is little or no way to tell what it's doing. You are running mainly on timing advance and very little carb. Not sure how mechancal you are so not sure how much help I could be to you. With a manual and some basic skills I could step you through a lot of the basic stuff but be prepared also to find out you've lost a power pack. There is a lot of other stuff that needs to be done before going that route though.

There should be a 5/16 - 3/8" barbed fitting screwed into an elbow on top of the tank that you're fuel line is held onto with a hose clamp. If someone has not already removed it, that barbed fitting should have a check ball in it, screw it out and check. If it does have the check ball, you might want to get a reqular fitting and replace that one. That ball is a coast guard requirement the help prevent an engine fire for going down the fuel line and into the tank. Many fuel delivery problems are caused by them, the ball sticks fully closed and lets no fuel by or don't let enough fuel by. Now as for your fuel pickup, it should be on the other end of that elbow you screwed the barbed fitting out of. You should be able to screw it out and it has a line coming out of it going down into the tank

Ok, you are going to be fishing ideal waters to really appreciate a large fiberglass boat. The minimum tin can I would look at is at 17.5' for where you plan to use it, also the fact you plan to have your wife and two kids along. With something like a four stroke 90 or e-tec 90. Again though, find a demo ride. Tin cans are definetly not for everybody, me for one. They can beat the crap out of you if the water just has a little chop on it, where a nice size glass boat will just glide across it, leaving a nice smile on your face. Like I said, do lots of homework and research, and try to arrange some rides. It's hard to get it right for your first boat, but it's a lot better to spend the effort than tring to get rid of the first one and finding a second. Just don't fall into BPS's and a lot of dealers trap to get you into a boat. BPS is the worlds worst about putting waayyyy to small of a motor on the boat package just so they can display a cheap price. I mean, a 40/50 on a 17.5' boat is rediculus.

First gives some serious though's on exactly what you want it for. If it's 95% fishing, and don't have far to haul it to the lake and you're not going to be running all over the place. Then the 20 footers are great. Even getting in 18 footers seems cramped to me now after years of using 20's. I just give a little more thought to where and how I'm going to fish and don't make those 60 mile runs like I used to do without giving it a thought. I also haven't put one of my gas guzzling, 300+ hp motors on in quite a while not. My 225 DFI motors does just fine and I don't have to run wide a** open every where I go now, using about a 1/3 as much gas. Also remember most bass boat's are for built TWO people so you might want to look at something like a Fish and Ski. Now, if you want it for a fishing boat, ski boat, family go to the lake and have fun boat, then you really need to do your homework. Old, 20 footers are going to have old 200/225's and at about 2.5 mpg, if you're luck, you don't do a whole lot of riding (not and enjoy it). You need to look at how many people you plan to have in the boat and what size boat is needed to safely handle them. I would strongly recommend staying with the max rated horse power and DO NOT go smaller than 10% - 15% of the max rated horse power, you will only regret it if you start putting any weight in the boat. The bigger motor is not for speed, it's a must for getting a boat up and on plane when there's much weight at all in it. Now for the bad part, all old motors are gas guzzlers, some more so than others. If anyway at all to swing it, the newer four strokes and DFI two strokes burn way less gas than the old EFI and carburated motors. The older DFI motors had their growing pains so they are not a real wise choice either. It doesn't take but one breakdown in one of those the ruin you're year. New motors have warrenties, old motors have some poor basterd crying. I can fix my own, so I don't have to cry as hard.