"All,
This is my first post
"All,
This is my first post on this site, which has been a great knowledge center. Firstly, my boat is a 1988 Tiara with twin 1988 454 Crusaders with approx 800 hours each. The port motor runs fine up to WOT 4200-4300, but I've recently been having trouble with the startboard motor... it's gone from achieving WOT 4200-4300 to just 3600.
I'm trying to connect the dots, so here are some other issues it's having:
1) Throttling up - ever since I've owned the boat, the motor bogs down around 2600-2800. If you keep pushing the throttle, it recovers and tachs up fine. My mechanic has felt it is a carb adjustment / transition issue.
2) Idle - seems to "lope" more than the other motor and the tach dances more. There is some noticeable white smoke and a small amount of petroleum in the exhaust water.. not sure if it's fuel or oil.
3) Plugs - pulled the plugs MR44T (picture below).. they look awful and #7 plug seemed wet when I pulled it and smelled like fuel. I replaced the plugs this weekend with MR43Ts and idled it for 15 minutes.. It fired right up and sounded pretty good, but was still smoking. Checked a few new plugs and they were starting to get black and #7 smelled like fuel again.
4) Temp - this starboard motor always runs cooler for the 1st 30 min than port.. takes a long time to get up to 160 degrees.
I'm wondering if this motor is running on 7 cyls... I never changed the plug wires and they look in decent shape. This has a Mallory dist with points and those were changed back in March. Checked cap to make sure firing order was correct and it was. Carb was rebuilt, new fuel filters back in March. Don't know how compression is... Any suggestions (i.e. valve job, timing advance)?
Plugs
This is my first post
"All,
This is my first post on this site, which has been a great knowledge center. Firstly, my boat is a 1988 Tiara with twin 1988 454 Crusaders with approx 800 hours each. The port motor runs fine up to WOT 4200-4300, but I've recently been having trouble with the startboard motor... it's gone from achieving WOT 4200-4300 to just 3600.
I'm trying to connect the dots, so here are some other issues it's having:
1) Throttling up - ever since I've owned the boat, the motor bogs down around 2600-2800. If you keep pushing the throttle, it recovers and tachs up fine. My mechanic has felt it is a carb adjustment / transition issue.
2) Idle - seems to "lope" more than the other motor and the tach dances more. There is some noticeable white smoke and a small amount of petroleum in the exhaust water.. not sure if it's fuel or oil.
3) Plugs - pulled the plugs MR44T (picture below).. they look awful and #7 plug seemed wet when I pulled it and smelled like fuel. I replaced the plugs this weekend with MR43Ts and idled it for 15 minutes.. It fired right up and sounded pretty good, but was still smoking. Checked a few new plugs and they were starting to get black and #7 smelled like fuel again.
4) Temp - this starboard motor always runs cooler for the 1st 30 min than port.. takes a long time to get up to 160 degrees.
I'm wondering if this motor is running on 7 cyls... I never changed the plug wires and they look in decent shape. This has a Mallory dist with points and those were changed back in March. Checked cap to make sure firing order was correct and it was. Carb was rebuilt, new fuel filters back in March. Don't know how compression is... Any suggestions (i.e. valve job, timing advance)?