Way2slow

A couple of things came into play. One is the chop, smooth water boats run slow, mild chop will give you your fastest speed, heavy chop and boat will start to slow again. Moderate chop reduces the hull wetting/drag, heavy chop lets the hull break loose, but the larger waves make the hull bite in too much so you loose more than you gain. Cool, heavy air, makes more horse power. the colder the water, the more dense and you get less prop slip. All this adds up to a faster boat in the mornings than in the afternoon. Take note of your afternoon rpms and chop, come this summer when the water and air are 20 degrees warmer, you rpm will be noticably less with the same amount of chop. I haven't run small motors in many years so can't comment on those but your average high performance, big V-6 bass boat running at or near max rpm in the early spring will easily loose 300 rpm in the summer.

Etec's are a different animal. With the piston temps they run, you definetly don't want to add anything.

NO, don't use a sand blaster. It will remove the metal also and look like crap. Bead blast or as mentioned, wallnut shell. Walnut shell is what they normally use on aircraft. These do not remove the metal. You have to be very carful with chemical strippers. Many of them will corrode the aluminum and it's impossible to get it all out of seams and rivets to keep it from it.

Sorry, reading my last post, I left a word out. I meant to say I run some "decarb" straight into the throttle bodies. I'm sure SeaFoam would work just fine for that also but it's not in a spray can, I buy the Johnson/Evinrude stuff that comes in the spray can. I use two cans, one can in each bank, spraying both cans at the same time going up and down the throats until cans are about 2/3 empty, then load it up with the rest until it dies. Any brand decarb should work, I've just used the Johnson stuff for buches of years and I've never had a problem with carbon buildup.

If your sure it's internal, you have a problem, 2strokes don't rattle. Most mercs run a ratcheting prop drive so the prop free spins when you let off the gas, preventing the decel knock common with many other motors. Might pay you to have it checked out. There are numbers of things that can cause wierd rattles. Bad wrist pins, cracked piston, a bad main bearing, exhaust tuner loose or broken off or even a lower unit can make it sound like the motor is making the noise. Just make sure you check everything before thinking about going into the power head. I just had a friend that just took his 150 merc power head and put on a remain'd one because it had a serious sounding rattle in it. Still had the rattle after swapping powerheads, his exhaust tuner had boken loose and rattleing around in the mid section.

I run it in the gas at 1 ounce per gallon. Every 50 hours or so I run some straight into the throttle bodies on my Ficht and straight into the carbs on the carburated motors. After running the motor with a pretty good dose having gone through them, I give one super size shot in each so it stalls the motor and let it sit overnight. As for feathers ruffled, not mine. I only post what I do or what I would do in a similar situation and make recommendations. I could absolutely, 100%, care less what anybody else does with their equipment, that's why there are repair shops. I just base my methods on about 45 years of personal experience racing, building and modifing boats and motors and just messing with boats, and they work just fine for me.

Stabalizer???? The Seafoam I run also performs as a stabalizer. You can put your faith in stabalizer, you can run six month or 16 month old gas, it's your motor. As I stated, it's rare for one of mine to sit long with gas in them and that usually get used in the mower, so I wouldn't consider it wasted. I think the few gallons of gas pulled out of my tank is a lot cheaper than rebuilding a powerhead. Keeping fresh gas is even much more critical now with the High Tech motors of today than ever before. The carb motors of a recent past time ran low compression and had a lot of cushion built in for those that think it's ok to park a boat in the fall and take it back out the next summer with the same gas in it. These newer computer controlled, DFI and four stroke motors are pushing the compression to the limit. You will can find out real quick just how expensive that few gallons of gas you didn't want to "waste" can be with those.

You are not doing a low compression 87 ocatane motor any good running a higher octane. Actually, just the opposite. Higher octane fuels burn slower and colder, and will cause more carbon buildup. Some of your early 80's and almosty all 70's and older motors are a different situation. They came along long before this junk we have for gas now and most of them have too much compression to safely run todays 87 octane so I would be wise to run premium in those. If it says 87 octane, run 87 octane unless you let your gas sit for a month or two. Gas looses octane rather quickly so if you let the boat sit for more than a month, it might pay you to add as much 93 octane as you have old gas in the tank. If for some rare occasion one of my boat sits for more than two months with gas in it, I won't run that gas, it comes out.

Trying different tilt pin positions is not going to hurt the motor. Might even help peformance some by trying it in the next position of two out. You should never run the motor with it in the locked position. If you hit anything, it could do some serious damage to the motor and the boat with it locked down. The only time it may be necessary to lock it is when in reverse and as long as you don't try and give it too much gas that's not a problem either, all it's going to do is jump out of the water but goes right back down as soon as you let off.

What hole is the motor in, are there any left to raise it? What kind of prop are you running? Looking at the picture, looks like it might be a four blade and four blade props don't like being run deep. Motor might be running too deep but since I don't work on other peoples stuff and haven't owned a boat without a jackplate in so many years I can't remember when, I would have a hard time telling you how to set one up but I would level the with pad with a level on the bottom of it and using the tounge tack to level it. Then level the motor with a level on the anticav plate using the trim. Place a straight edge on the pad out to the motor and see where the anticav plate is in relation to the straight edege. I would try it with the motor up about 1/2 inch above the pad, just watch the water pressure guage and make sure you still have at least 16 psi at all times. What I would really do is find me a 6" jackplate, you can find good used ones for 150 or less. One thing, motors will pull right when not up fully on plane and not properly trimed out. It should not have any steering torque when running WOT and trimed out properly.

Which one is coming on, the one for the tank, or the one for the pump. It's rather common for the tank sensor to screw up and give false indications of no oil in the tank. That's just a motor of replacing the sensor in the tank provided it's not a wiring problem. If it's the sensor in the pump, there is nothing you can do to fix that orther than making sure all the lines are sealing properly. I looked for my ficht manual to make sure but I think the tank is a LOW OIL warning and the pump is a NO OIL warning. If the pump is it and you don't mind premixing all you have to do is unplug the two wire connector on the motor going to the tank and unplug the five pin connector going to the pump so they don't make the alarm sound and lwarning lights come on. If you have a lot of oil in the tank, you might want to dump that out or take the hose loose at the motor and cap it off. That's all there is to doing away with oil injection on your Johnson. If you leave the oil in the tank and premix, it's giong to double oil until it pulls all the oil out of the tank. Unplugging all those wires does not keep it from still pumping oil. Once the tank is empty it hurts absolutely nothing to let it run dry. The oil side of the pump is totally independent from the fuel side of the pump so if it's not pump oil, the fuel side could care less. Now, they do make a fuel only pump you can buy for about $175 and replace yours, or a new CRO pump like on yours cost in the neighborhood of $300 if they are not up to $400 by now. You can do like I do and do away with all that crap. For less than $100 you can install an electric pump and relay so when you turn the key on, the fuel pump comes on. No more of this primer bulb crap and trying to get enough primer fuel in a cold motor to get it started. Turn the key on, push it in for a few seconds and go to crank, the motors starts just as good as any DFI motor. One other thing you might check, take the tank out and dump it, I've seen bunches of those things have enough water in them the motor would be getting water instead of oil. I would check all connections and everything else I could check before ruling the pump bad. In 99 they updated those things, changed them from a VRO (variable ratio oil) to a CRO (constant ratio oil) and those newer units have been almost bullet prof. Anything can go bad, but I would be sure to check everything else first.

If your running a jackplate and have the motor up, that thing probably does not even touch the water and is totally useless. It looks like it's already about as far as it will go. Might need to look at a skegg mounted torque tab. There are also lots of other things associated with hard righ pull that all relate back to having too much of the hull running in the water.

It has air in it and needs to be bled out. Check your cylinder on the motor and see if there is any sign of oil where the rods come out, if so you probably need a new seal kit (approx $100). I use the mil spec H5606 hydraulic fluid, this can be picked up at most local/county airports that have a maintenance shop. You can buy a gallon of that for about $20 and SeaStrar want's about $13 for a pint of theirs. Do Not use Dextron, that's only suggested to use in an emergency when nothing else is available. It will also make life a little simpler if you use the bleed kit. I made mine with a barb fitting a 3" piece of hose and a plactic gear oil bottle with the tappered cap. You will also want a 3 - 4' piece of hose to fit over the bleeders on the cylinder feed into a quart bottle. That way you can catch the fluid and reuse it. It take a lot of fluid passed through the system to fully bleed it.

Glass or Aluminum????? Depends on what you want from the boat. Yes, aluminum are lighter, easier to tow, and generally cost less to operate (unless you get one of the new form pressed aluminums) but personnally I've never seen an aluminum I would want to fish from all day on big lake. Most glass boats even as small as 18 feet will ride great, even on some pretty rough water, are very stable to move around in and when big wakes from other boats hitting it. I have a 16' Fisher aluminum and I would not even consider taking it to Clarks Hill, the lake I mostly fish. To me an aluminum is strickly a skinny water boat used when going in the rivers for bream and catfish. When I'm going to a big lake, I wouldn't take anything for that 20' lead sled I'm dragging behind me, even though I'm having to use a full size pickup with a big V-8 burning bunches of gas to get it there, and bunches more in the boat after I get it there. The comfort level and room while on the water is just sooooo much greater.

On my dads old 88 I-6 115, I just took the tank/pump unit out of the boat and ran another hose from the gas tank to the primer bulb in the splash well. I wouldn't unbolt anything off the motor, just bypass/unplug what's needed to keep the alarm from going off and premix. You might check with somebody that knows a lot more about your motor than me, since I don't mess with many black motors before doing this though. On the old OMC's you can just unplug the sender in the tank and the wires going to the pump and leave everything else alone, Or take the tank out to get it out of the way.

If you're wanting to remove the old gel, you will probably want to start with 120 work up from there. That gel is going to be a lot harder to sand than your average auto point. I also think you're opening a can of worms you might have a hard time closing if you start trying to do some heavy sanding on that gel, if the top coat is gel. From what you are describing about the clear coat flaking off, I seriously doubt you are dealing with gel on the top coat and if it's not gel, it all realy needs to come off to get down to the original gel for anything you spray back on it to even have a chance at holding up. I just hope you love this boat because by the time you get done, if you do it right, you are going to have a hellava lot of hard work and more than just a few bucks invested in it. There is another product I hear people say works very good on fiberglass and gel coat called AwlGrip, but I have never used it.

The regulator has nothing to do with how it runs, it's only for charging the battery and provides the signal to the tac for the rpm's.. Linc and Sinc and carbs are the main causes of what you describe. If your are sure the linc and sinc is right, the carbs is your next thing. Knowing those carbs the way I do, I think the problem is with them. They are extremely difficult to get clean. They may look clean but even the smallest amount of deposit in the orfices will make them mess up. I've seen more than one good mechanic rebuild them just to have to go back and clean them again. I think that's one reason they charge about $200 to do them. I have a set of 1 - 80 wire bits and a selection of piano wires I use to clean all the orfices. However, let me be the first to say, I don't recommend anyone use metal objest to carb jets and orfices in they are truely familiar with what they are doing. One ten thousandths of and inch (0.0001) makes a big difference in how that orfice perfroms. I only use the back side of the bits, never the cutting end but you are steal dealing with aluminum, brass and plastic, any forcing even the back side can remove material and open the orfice beyound specs. I've been doing this a long time and have a feel for what's going on when I use the wire bits. Tooth picks are the recommended tool to clean them with but they will not get into some of the orfices needed to be cleaned. You also need to make sure that little brass tube inside the larger tube in the center of the carb is clean all the way up through it. I do that with a piece of piano wire. I do not recommending the average home mechanic removing those expansion plugs. If the replacement plug leaks, you have all kinds of problems but if the carb is in bad shape, sometimes they have to come out. A couple of cans of breakpart cleaner, something to clean all the orfices, compressed air, a good blow gun, a couple of hours of making sure every little hole in those things are clean, set the float level and you will probably find it will run much better. There are always other things but the carbs are the number one problem about 95% of the time on that motor.

Now that one I could see. A Cabela's $100 seat on the rear deck of a $50,000 Ranger. ;D ;D ;D ;D

If that's the older remote system that mixes at the oil tank, save yourself a motor, junk it and premix at 50:1. I am curious what gives the indication it's starving for oil. Usually about the thing you have to go by for that is when the motor starts making all those strange noises that say's you are fixing to spend a bunch of money. If it's sounding the alarm, could just be a bad sensor, but it doesn't matter, you still need to junk it.

Been there, done that also. I left a Stratos rear seat somewhere between Thomson GA and Welatka FL. Dang replacement seat cost me almost as much as the fishing trip.

Running in auto is what causes one to go crazy on depth in shallow water. The auto gain is too high and it starts picking up harmonics to it's primary echo and making it think it's in deeper water. Run it in manual and back the gain/sensitivity down when in shallow water will fix that problem. Not sure what your trying to do when your talking about lifting decks to run wires. What usually works is to disconnect the Xducer from the sonar, tie a heavy nylon cord to the connector end, use some tape, and tape on both ends of the connector so it forms a bullet shape on each end, this helps to keep if from hanging, and pull the old cable out, pulling the cord with it. Use the cord to pull the new one in. It helps if two people do this so one can work one end and the second person work the other, somethings you both have to hold some pressure and work it to bet it them through. Xducer should be mounted so the bottom barely sticks below the bottom of the hull.

First determine what height your prop shaft is at. Do this buy placing a level length ways in the center of the pad and crank the tounge jack up/down until the pad is level. Do all this on a flat, level surface. Now place a level on the motor's anticavitation plate and trim the motor until it's level. Measure from the center of the pad to the surface, then from the center of prop shaft to the surface. The difference between those two measurements is you current prop height. Keep this as your base line so you will know what to come back to if adjustments don't work. If I had to guess, I would think that's probably a 6" jackplate but it could be less as you said. If your motor is running a Raker, for starters, set the height at 3 1/2". If you do have less than a 6" plate, might want to start at 4 1/2" below the pad. Watch the water pressure, It should not drop below the manufactors recommended minimum, check with the dealer on that, on the earlier motors that's 16 psi. The 3.3 L Ficht and E-tecs run a high volume, low pressure cooling system, I'm not positive what their minimum is and don't want to say what I think it is. Water pressure should never drop below minimum, and I mean never, that's that's even in sharp turns. During you test runs, watch your water pressure, tac, gps and pay attention to your bow lift. Raise the motor 1/4" at the time, until you see an increase in rpm and no increase in speed, or the water pressure drops below min, or you start loosing bow lift, When any of these happen, drop the motor back down 1/2". There is a lot of seat of the pants feel you need to be able to recognize when finding that "sweet spot". One key thing is you have to realy understand how the boat is respoinding to trim, It's very easy to overtrim, have a big rooster tail and still see some increase in speed but your setup is not optimum, the motor is using too much power to lift the bow. That's actually wasted power because that's not power being used to generated foward movement. The rooster tail should not be any higher than the top of the motor. One thing you will probably find, with a stock prop and a small jackplate, you may not get optimum bowlift. Having the a raker prop tuned by one of the good, custom prop turners, is almost mandatory, for optimum peformance. An 8" jackplate may also be required on your boat also. Just check with Stratos before messing trying more offset. They have maximums they willl warrent, anything more and it will void the lifetime warrenty on your hull.

I've used mine many times in the St. Johns river around Palatka Fl and in the James river in VA and have never even bothered to rince them off. Never really even gave it a thought, and have never seen any ill effects from it but it's seldom I keep a motor over four or five years.

Are they both hand control or is the bow mount foot contorl? If the bow mount is foot control, you are going to run into wire quage issues, none of the wiring in the foot contol is going to be large enough to handle the current the bigger motors draws. If they are both hand control you could probably do it without much trouble. The heads would have to come off and rotated 180 degrees but if the bow mount is the old type 15 mount without the door for removing the motor from the mount, the heads would have to come off anyway.

Are you sure you read it right, I've never seen any motor that runs 100:1 at operating rpm. VRO units advertise up to 100:1 but the 100:1 is only at idle and it starts increasing oil as it gains rpm. 50:1 is the standard for sub 6,000 rpm motors, 40:1 for high performance motors turning over 6,000 and some go to 32:1 over 7,000 rpm.