I have 2006 Tiara Sovran 3600 with twin 8.1L Crusaders. I purchased the vessel when it was 2 years old and had 48 hours on it at the time. The previous owner managed to gum up the walls of the fuel tank. I am not for certain how, I only know that the tanks had a hard varnish type substance that would flake off when operating in heavy weather and would plug up the primary fuel filters and eventually managed to damage the port low pressure fuel pump. After replacing the pump I sent the vessel back to Tiara as part of their R&R program and had them open up the tanks and clean the interior of the walls of both tanks, clean the fuel lines and replace all the filters. They put the boat in their test tanks and ran it for a while to be sure everything worked okay. In the end they also replaced the port low pressure fuel pump again. I ran the boat about 25 hours and started to have similar symptoms with only the port engine.
At this point I was getting quite frustrated. The port primary fuel filter would get some small debris in it but nothing that would prevent operation. I installed a Flow-Scan fuel flow system on both engines and also installed pressure gauges on the outlet of the primary fuel pumps and the outlet of the fuel cells leading to the injector rail. Both engines run 3-7# of fuel pressure on the low stage and 57-60# on the high. Both engines burn the same amount of fuel at any given RPM. However every 3-5 hours of operation the port engine will randomly shut down. Sometimes it comes back to life before the boat stops and we continue on our way, sometimes I have to stop and restart the port engine. When the engine shuts down there is no noticeable drop in fuel flow prior to it shutting down; the fuel pressure on both gauges does not drop off.
I had a Crusader mechanic plug his computer into the engines and see if there was any codes active or past and it did not show any. We compared the "key on" event counter to see if there was a loose wire causing the one engine to stop and start. Both engines where within 7 key events. (this had happened no less than 75 times at this point). He concluded that it was a fuel filter again so we changed the filters and put the boat away for the winter.
I picked up the boat today and had a good 3 hour run with no problems. Upon entering the harbor the problem came back. I had to restart the boat 5 times in 5 miles before I got it to the slip. I am starting to think that the computer may be going nuts. However in light of the past fuel problems I am not 100% sure. I really do not want to just throw parts at it and could use a new perspective as to how to attack this.
Any ideas?
Steve
At this point I was getting quite frustrated. The port primary fuel filter would get some small debris in it but nothing that would prevent operation. I installed a Flow-Scan fuel flow system on both engines and also installed pressure gauges on the outlet of the primary fuel pumps and the outlet of the fuel cells leading to the injector rail. Both engines run 3-7# of fuel pressure on the low stage and 57-60# on the high. Both engines burn the same amount of fuel at any given RPM. However every 3-5 hours of operation the port engine will randomly shut down. Sometimes it comes back to life before the boat stops and we continue on our way, sometimes I have to stop and restart the port engine. When the engine shuts down there is no noticeable drop in fuel flow prior to it shutting down; the fuel pressure on both gauges does not drop off.
I had a Crusader mechanic plug his computer into the engines and see if there was any codes active or past and it did not show any. We compared the "key on" event counter to see if there was a loose wire causing the one engine to stop and start. Both engines where within 7 key events. (this had happened no less than 75 times at this point). He concluded that it was a fuel filter again so we changed the filters and put the boat away for the winter.
I picked up the boat today and had a good 3 hour run with no problems. Upon entering the harbor the problem came back. I had to restart the boat 5 times in 5 miles before I got it to the slip. I am starting to think that the computer may be going nuts. However in light of the past fuel problems I am not 100% sure. I really do not want to just throw parts at it and could use a new perspective as to how to attack this.
Any ideas?
Steve
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