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2003 Honda bf 225 alarm issue

Captmerc

Member
I developed an alarm issue on one of my engines on the weekend about an hour after going thru some very low water (sandy bottom). I suspected it might be an overheat issue, so I changed both thermostats, cleaned the temperature sensors, and flushed the engine twice with salt away.
The engine pee’s fine but when I speed it up beyond 3200 RPM in neutral it activates an alarm, starts to shake and decreases rpm to idle, I have changed the main fuel filter(from the tank) and checked the water separator on the engine, that did not solve the issue.


Today I started the engine waited about 30 seconds and increased the rpm to 3400, no alarm, raised it to 4100 and let it run for at least 3 minutes, no alarms, only the green oil light was on, I stopped the engine and re started several times, all ok.


A few minutes later I decided to try it again, I noticed that when I first turned the key to the on position there was one short beep, started engine and increased RPM, at 3400 the alarm went off, It was just one long beep, until I stopped the engine, what I did see is that when the alarm activated, the green oil light went out, checked and found I was down almost 2 qts of oil, added oil, but that did not solve the issue. Hope this is not an indication of worn bearings (which I doubt) causing a loss of oil pressure when the oil gets hot, (engines have about 950 hours).


One more point, about 8 weeks ago, I had a water hose burst on the fuel pump assembly that obviously dumped a lot of water back there, my mechanic took the pump out and cleaned and repaired the problem, any chance that has some bearing on my issue, it appears according to the parts diagram that is the area that the oil pressure senders are located in.


My mechanic is gonna have a look in a few days, but I wondered if anyone had encountered anything similar, thanks for any thoughts.




 
Several possibilities...

If you ingested sand into the cooling passages, it's hard to get out. Best to drop your lower unit, remove one t-stat at a time, and seal a garden hose end into the hole with a rag, then turn on the water full power. Flush for a good ten minutes. Repeat on the other t-stat.

The one short beep when you turn the key switch on is a bit baffling. It could be that the ECU has a lot of fault codes stored and is not giving you a normal start up sequence - just a SWAG. You should first clear all the fault codes on the ECU. You do that by shunting the service connector and operating the kill switch 5 times within 20 seconds. If you need a write up of the full procedure for pulling and clearing the codes, send an e-mail to me at [email protected]. Once the codes are cleared, go through your start up procedure again and see if you get an alarm again. If you do, then pull the fault codes and let us know what code you get.

Two quarts of oil low is NOT good. Pull your dipstick and smell the oil. If it smells like some gas is in there, then change the oil immediately. Then re-test your engine. It is possible that your t-stats are stuck open and you are running too cold. That will get gas in the oil, thinning it, which could cause an overheat situation and a drop in oil pressure. However, in that situation, you normally appear to have too much oil. BTW, a lot of folks are now recommending 25W-40 oil in these big Honda's with a good many hours on them.

Look for physical oil leaks all around the engine. If you are testing it in a barrel, then see if you get an oil slick on the top of the water in the barrel. If you are testing on the water, look for an oil slick coming out of the exhaust ports. It should be obvious.

Staying with the oil problem, pull your plugs and look for black soot on any one (or all) of them. The tips should be a light brown if all is well in the combustion chambers. If not, your next steps are a compression test and leak down test.
 
Thanks for taking the time to reply, as I said my mchanic is coming in the next day or so.
to address some of the points you raised:
1. the oli seems fine, no burnt smell, yea I agree I messes up with the oil level, one thing I did not mention, before the issue occured, I had run at about 4200rpm for roughly 20 minutes, then trolled for at least 40 minutes before attempting to get back up on plane, thats when the issue occured.
2. I installed new t-stats
3. The short beep when key turned on was not there when I first started up this morning when the engine briefly ran ok.
4. No oil leak evident in water, or at exhaust.
5. On the day the issue happened, I was anchored at the beach for at least 4 hours, upon attempting to get on plane, the alarm sounded immediatly when she hit 3200 rpm.
I will post the results of the mechanics visit when he gets done.
 
my very strong suspicion (hope) is that its a bad sensor/Sending unit, as I said, I had a major sea water leak from the fuel pump, and that is in the area where those sensors are.
 
Further to the mystery, just tried it again 5 hours later, no alarm, did notice one thing though, above 4500 rpm the revs rmained stedy for a while 15 seconds then slowly increased by 2 or 3 hundred in s few seconds, then droped back a bit went back up etc.
mmmmm, high speed fuel filter? Bad coil? Gonna do a test run tomorrow.

Can anyone tell me the procedure to change the HS fuel filter? Or should I just leave it for the mechanic?
 
On many of the 225's the VTEC system (Variable Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control) "hunts" or varies RPM's in the 4200 to 4600 rpm range. Mine does that. On my engine the variation is about 150 rpm, max. The only half way explanation I've heard is that the VTEC system is vacillating between VTEC mode and non-VTEC mode because of varying load on the drive train. Sounds flaky to me, but most of them do it.

The high pressure fuel filter is pretty easy to change out. There are three 10 mm bolts that hold the triangular cover. If you look on the back of your engine, it's pretty easy to spot and get to. Be sure to use a new O ring. The HP fuel filter is the source of many performance problems with the 200 and 225. It seems to deteriorate on its own. It should be changed out every 200 hours or every season, whichever comes first.
 
Hey CHawk, thanks for all your input and guidence, fyi I am a resonably competent auto mechanic, but I try to keep away from anything major on the hondas.
tomorrow will tell!
 
It will likely pay you to get the official Helm shop manual. It costs about $116 on Amazon or eBay. Chapter 3 alone is worth it's weight in gold because it takes you step by step through all of the detailed maintenance procedures, saving you many $$$. Chapter 5 takes you through the detailed diagnostics for trouble-shooting.
 
Update, just back from a 40 minute sea trial, no issues.
I did not change the high pressure fuel fliter, so I am still stumped as to what the issue was.
I cant see it being fuel as I did not change the HS Filter
I cant see it being low oil as the alarm was still there after adding oil.
I cant see it being raw water flow because of the oil ligh that went out when the alarm activated.

my only conclusion is a bad connection on one of the oil sending units that "fixed itself" but will probably resurface, gonna change the sensors and make sure the connections are clean.
 
I am having the exact same issue on my 2002 BF225 with 820 hrs. Idles fine but when I hit about 4k RPM alarms goes off, engine shakes violently and shuts down. Restarts fine and runs fine until I hit 4k then everything repeats. I changed water pump and t-stats. When it happened after that, I checked oil and it was a little low, maybe 1/4-1/2 qt. Topped it off but still having issue. My last mechanic disappeared with my Helm manual, if you guys think it is sensor-related, where are they located and how hard are they to they to troubleshoot/replace? I'm thinking oil pressure sensor, but I am going to try one more time and put a temp gun on the banks to check temperature after alarm. I did have the T-Stat corrosion issue at 600 hrs and have been using SteelStik on the block, but it was fine for 200 hours or so till now
Last time I checked Amazon the manual was not available
 
Aristikat is correct. I forgot to mention that screen on the bottom of the fuel pump could be clogged.

I tried to post a link to the Helm shop manual on eBay, but this site blocked it. Will try it in a follow on post. If it doesn't work, do a search on eBay.
 
Also, there is an online shop manual. This site blocks the URL and I cannot seem to get around the block. If you are interested, send an email to me at [email protected], and I will send you the link.


Thanks! Sent you an e-mail. How hard are those oil sending units /sensors to diagnose, replace? Where are they located? I am thinking that my be my issue after reading OP .

Thanks,

Other Line
 
I replied to your e-mail.

There are two oil pressure sensors, high side and low side. They are down in the V between the two cylinder banks. In the online manual it should be pages 5-96 and 5-97. Those pages provide test procedures. I've never had to dig into those, so I can't help you on the procedure for getting to them. Bobmech and Wajira have probably been in there.
 
chawk, i ordered replacements, and they will be changed when I get my annual haulout and engine service done in two weeks.
Again, thanks fo all uour help ane input.
 
Roger that. Seems like it would be best to test them IAW the shop manual before simply replacing them. But I'm not in your shoes.
 
Roger that. Seems like it would be best to test them IAW the shop manual before simply replacing them. But I'm not in your shoes.

My issue is I live in Nassau so 90% of the time parts have to be ordered from stateside, since they are not over the top expensive it's just easier to have them on hand and change 'em with the annual service.
 
Update! Used the boat today, cruises @ 4100 for about 20 minutes, came off plane to get some dock lines ready, tried to get back on plane, alarm issue resurfaced. I ran slow and tied up for a lunch break, and before re starting, I tried something I read about to reset the ecu, I removed the kill switch clip, turned the key to the on position, and pressed the kill switch button 5 times, turned the key off, put the kill switch back on, and all was well again. Thoughts?
 
Hmmmm. That's the procedure for clearing codes from the EPROM in the ECU, BUT, the shop manual says the the proper procedure requires that the service connector be shunted - black wire shunted to the green/white wire with a paper clip, before turning on the key and operating the kill switch five times.

When you did that, did you get one or two beeps from the alarm?

By chance, did someone leave the shunt hooked up to the service connector?
 
Hmmmm. That's the procedure for clearing codes from the EPROM in the ECU, BUT, the shop manual says the the proper procedure requires that the service connector be shunted - black wire shunted to the green/white wire with a paper clip, before turning on the key and operating the kill switch five times.

When you did that, did you get one or two beeps from the alarm?

By chance, did someone leave the shunt hooked up to the service connector?

I honestly cant say about the beeps, I always get 2 beeps when I turn the keys on (tripples)

As to a shunt, I seriously doubt it if it was done it would have been at least 5 years ago when I had the engines surveyed in Florida before I purchased the boat.
It is interesting that it has only occured after a 20 minute or so run, makes me think it is a bad sensor, or a dirty connection to a sensor, esepcially in light of the fuel pump raw water leK back there.
 
I honestly cant say about the beeps, I always get 2 beeps when I turn the keys on (tripples)

As to a shunt, I seriously doubt it if it was done it would have been at least 5 years ago when I had the engines surveyed in Florida before I purchased the boat.
It is interesting that it has only occured after a 20 minute or so run, makes me think it is a bad sensor, or a dirty connection to a sensor, esepcially in light of the fuel pump raw water leK back there.

having similar issue, was it ever resolved?
 
can some one help me out! at first the green light was on, and stay on, since buzz on and the 2 red light come on then green light not on no more! green light is on every time start the motor but stay off right after the Buzzer and the MIL on!
 
I suggest that you start a new thread and provide more information in terms of when this occurs and under what circumstances.
 
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