Midocean engine stall

" We've been having troubl

" We've been having trouble with our 454 starboard engine. Out on an hour cruise the engine kept fluctuating
between 2500 and 2000 RPM's. At 1000 rpm's it stalled...very hard to restart.... Four days later we could not
start it at all. The engine would crank but wouldn't turn over. We replaced the coil and rotor...cleaned other
connections, pumped the fuel and it finally started. The engine ran a little jummpy (surged up and down). Then
we heard a pop, smoke came out of the carburetor and the engine shut down. We were eventually able to start
it but we had to keep the rpm's above 1000 to keep it going.

Mid-ocean, after about an hour of trouble free cruising at 2500 the starboard engine just died...never could get it
started. Does anybody have any ideas what the problem could be?
By the way, the same thing happened just before we pulled her out for winterizing last Fall. Supposededly our
mechanic had repaired the problem. This same engine consumes 25% more fuel than the port engine and the
oil pressure stays on the low side (40 ish).

Thanks for any help. MV "

" My guess it contaminated fue

" My guess it contaminated fuel, water is most likely. First thing to do is to replace ALL the fuel filters on the starboard side. You didn't say type of engines or whether both engines feed from the same tank or not. If engines are Crusader, there are most likely three seperate fuel filters, the main spin-on fuel filter water separator not mounted on the engine, a small canister filter on the back of the engine near the coil, and a carb inlet filter. If you can cross feed the engines, try feeding both from the port's tank and see of the problem clears up.

Fuel consumption and oil pressure are most likely unrelated to the stalling problem. Are you synchronizing the engines properly at cruise? 40 PSI isn't necessarily something to worry about unless it is changing rapidly. As a engine wears the oil pressure drops. "