2001 mercury 150 salt water not running well

[philliph]

i recently purchased a new to me center console with a 2001 merc 150 salt water on it. I havent even taken off the cowling yet to see if it is fuel injected or carbed. It starts fine but when i try to get it on plane it has this weird tick. it makes me feel like i have a bad plug or something. to describe it i would say that it misses or loses power for like a 1/4 second several times in a row as it gets on plane. once it is on plane it runs like a dream. no smoke, starts every time, and it has plenty of gas. where do i start?

think of it like your transmission is slipping in a car. it goes through the gears but has a jolt when at higher and increasing rpm

 

[philliph]

anybody?

 

[Texasmark]

Getting on plane is the highest stress time for the engine. I'd start with fresh gas and go to an auto parts store and buy a couple of 16 oz bottles of Sea Foam. The directions on the can say to use 1 oz per gallon for normal maintenance. I'd dump both cans to 10 gallons and go out and run it hard for half hour or so. Shut it down and let it sit for awhile.....have a picnic or something. Then after a couple of hours get back in and run it hard again attempting to run out all of the 10 gallons.....leave enough to get back to the dock obviously. Take it home and the next time you go out if you still have the problem we can dig deeper; oh and put in the 1 oz per gallon this time. The big guns on this site put me onto that product when i first joined and I was never without it subsequently. The product contains alcohol, light mineral oil and naptha. It is a chemical engine cleaner and works exceptionally well on 2 stroke engines that burn oil with the gas.