23 liter ford OMC stren drive

"Hello, I have tuned up my boa

"Hello, I have tuned up my boat and have it running pretty good but from about 3/4 throttle on it pops and miss fires a bit, when I back off the throttle a little it smooths out and runs good. I have put a new rebuilt carburetor on the motor and done the usual tune-up work. My old dwell meter craped out but I think I have the new points set good. Can't easily buy a dwell meter anymore. One funny thing I have noticed is my dash tachometer seems to read the right RPM at idle and up to maybe haft throttle, then it goes off the scale at 3/4 throttle, what's with that??
Sometimes when I dock and put it into reverse the engine stalls out as well.

I've being reading threads about changing over to an electronic ignition and I am thinking that may be the way to go. Regards, Nathen."

"Check the advance mechanism i

"Check the advance mechanism in the distributor as Bob said earlier. Otherwise, you may want to start by unplugging the ESA and see if these problems still exist."

"Thank you for the advice, whe

"Thank you for the advice, when I get home in a few days I'll figure out what the ESA is and how it works and do as you suggest. Don't want to dive into the distributor unless I have too. Would this be affecting my tachometer as well?"

"The ESA (Electronic Shift

"The ESA (Electronic Shift Assist) is a module activated (normally) only when shifting out of gear into neutral. It actually shorts out the ignition by grounding out the negative side of the coil but it does it in pulses so it shouldn't really ever stall the engine, this causes the engine to stumble and drop in RPM's which makes shifting much easier and smoother.

Anyway the reason Chuck suggested removing it (I think) from the picture is because it's tied to the negative side of the coil as is your tach. You'll find the ESA up top on the starboard side, find the 2 wire connector (purple and grey) and disconnect it and then take it out for a spin."

Thanks for the info Bob.

Thanks for the info Bob.

"Well, I did as you suggested

"Well, I did as you suggested and disconnected the ESA with the same results. So I decided to gap the points a little more with good results, I only got some popping noise at WOT, so I guess I wasn't getting a strong enough spark to ignite all the fuel in the cylinder and the popping sound was the fuel igniting in the exhaust manifold. My tachometer works to about 5100 RPM now as well.

I'm going to gap the points a little more and give her another try. I thought the gap was to be set to 0.019"? Thanks for your help guys."

.018-.019 is right on although

.018-.019 is right on although I prefer to use a dwell meter @ 34-38 deg. Sounds like those points might need replacing if you can't get them right on.

"Hello bob, I have new points

"Hello bob, I have new points installed, that was one of the first things I did when I got this boat a short time ago. Now I just set the points to 0.025" yesterday which eliminated the popping noise at WOT during my test run. I cruised 20 miles from my cabin to port and it ran great, idled good for docking after the run as well shifted in to reverse without stalling and without the ESA hooked up too. I think I don't need the ESA. My dwell meter craped out and I'll have to special order a new one if I want to replace it. I may go with an electronic ignition unit to get me buy until I can do what I really want which which put a 150 HP or 175 HP Suzuki outboard on the boat. What can I say I feel the need for speed, thanks again."

"OK Nathen...if you've cha

"OK Nathen...if you've changed the points gap by that much you should really check the timing as well, normally on that engine should be 10 BTDC"