Honda 15 running worse every day!

[eseibel67]

2003 Honda 15 electric start on a 14' aluminum boat. Purchased new in 2005. Ran flawlessly until last season, it started to feel like it would occasionally miss while on cruise. This boat is used VERY sparingly, I would guess it has 20 hours on it.

Now, it starts hard, idles like crap, and misses so badly, it's difficult to get on plane. When I get really pi$$ed off, I'll give 'er full throttle and sometimes she'll come alive for short bursts. But it's missing the whole time.

Both spark plugs look normal. Checked the fuel filter - clean as day one. Drained the carb, blew out the lines and used new fresh fuel.

Ran Stabil through every fall.

Open to suggestions on where to look next.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dummyman]

Re: Honda 15 running worse every day!

Hi,
Sorry to hear your engine failed.If you have drained the carbs now then no point. If you had drained the carbs while you stored then it should not have this problem.
If very thing is ok then i suggest to clean carbs and see the performance.
Regards

 

[hoytvectrix]

Re: Honda 15 running worse every day!

agreed with dummyman. Clean the carb. Also check the compression in the cylinders that might be a cause for a severe loss of power...

 

[eseibel67]

Re: Honda 15 running worse every day!

agreed with dummyman. Clean the carb. Also check the compression in the cylinders that might be a cause for a severe loss of power...

I will diassemble and clean carb thoroughly. I can't imagine a compression problem because of the low hours, but will check if carb clean doesn't produce results.

Thanks for your help guys.

 

[jimdd810]

Re: Honda 15 running worse every day!

I would highly recommend getting a carb kit. Honda carbs have alot of orings in them and with ethynol gas so abundant there is a great chance one of the orings is damaged. You can take that carb apart and clean it 100 times but still could run like crap due to the orings.

 

[SteveRoss]

Re: Honda 15 running worse every day!

Sorry to hear about your Honda woes. I to have a Honda 15, '06 model and hope I'm not faced with similar problems.

Your post says that you "Ran Stabil thru every fall." If that means one tankful with Stabil every year, I don't think that's enough. I'd keep it in there all the time... every tankful gets a dose of the "medicine". It's designed to fight the effects of the ethanol which is what could be eating your carb's o-rings.

Good luck with it !!

 

[eseibel67]

Re: Honda 15 running worse every day!

Thanks for the tips, guys.

Yesterday I dismantled the carb, soaked the tubes and jet in carb cleaner, and blew out all passages with compressed air. "O" rings were still very pliable, so I re-used all the old parts. Reassembled - and it still runs bad.

Put in 2 new spark plugs, and now runs like the day I took it out of the box. Guess I should have done that first. Doh!

 

[gss036]

Re: Honda 15 running worse every day!

Plugs may look good but they can and do fool you. I know mechanics that will change plugs before they will do anything else. So, if you have good plugs, make sure you tell the mechanic that you want your old plugs or they will throw them away.

 

[RicMic]

Re: Honda 15 running worse every day!

There is a rule that has been beaten into time after time(by myself), ALWAYS check the simplest things FIRST. I run the Marine Stabil in every tank, if I could get non ethanol gas I wouldn't.