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81 ping when dragging a sea anchor trolling

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Bill Boggy

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I have a 8.1 in a 2003 Carolin

I have a 8.1 in a 2003 Carolina Classic and have a loud ping coming from the starboard engine. I only hear it when trolling with that engine dragging a sea anchor. This engine failed last year at 225 hours--#5 piston had to be replaced (engine looked new internally). My dealer has checked codes (none) and claims they are stumped. I was thinking of switching electronic components with the port engine until the problem follwed. Any ideas would be greatly apprecaited. Thank you
 
A restriction in the exaust ca

A restriction in the exaust can cause pinging. That situation would not show up in code. Is the ignition system coilpack (no distributor)?
 
"Are you sure it's not com

"Are you sure it's not coming from the gear?

I hope they put that new piston in facing the right direction, could be piston slap. Try unplugging the coil wires, one at a time to see if it goes away when a certain cylinder is killed.

If the dealer is diagnosing this, they can use their diagnostic tool to do it. I am assuming they checked the obvious things that cause pinging. Water in fuel, low compression, poor quality fuel, timing advance (not adjustable on this engine, but still checkable)etc.

Very seldom does a problem show up in a code so the fact that this problem does not, is not relevant."
 
Thanks for the response. It is

Thanks for the response. It is a distributor less ignition system. I never thought to check the exhaust and have no idea how I would (any ideas?). I never thought of the gear either since I burned out #5 piston I thought it only made sense that it was the engine ping which took out the piston. We checked the fuel quality (both engines run on the same tank and the port engine is fine) and timing (compared to port engine) and both are good. Never shorted cylinders since both times we took the scanner (Diacom) with us it wouldn’t ping. Some days no matter what we try it runs and sounds great. Other days it’s so loud you’d think a phone was ringing on shore. The days it pinged we’ve removed spark plugs once back at the dock and nothing obvious. The piston was installed correctly (great local machine shop did the repair) and since the piston was changed the noise hasn’t changed. The compression is also great since the piston has been replaced.
 
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