4.3 Mercruiser - randomly dies

[louc]

THE FIX; After multiple trips to several different boat repair shop, it was determined that it was a stuck poppet valve in the exhaust manifold that was overheating the electronics. All he had to do was get the valve unstuck and it has seemed to work good ever since.

were the electronics mounted to the exhaust elbow? if so you can certainly see how that could happen!
Note to Mercruiser, exhaust elbows get hot, D'oh!

 

[tedthebrit]

My module is mounted to the distributor, so maybe my problem is different. But the symptoms are exactly the same. Neither the engine or the engine bay seemed to be getting particularly hot, but leaving it to cool down for 1/2 hour seemed to be the only way to get it to run again, albeit only briefly. I'd suspect a vapor lock, but the accelerator squirters were pumping well when trying to restart, and starter spray didn't help. It wasn't flooded either, as cranking with full throttle wouldn't reliably get it to start, and if it did it would only run for seconds. Still a mystery.... Thanks to both of you for your help, though.