Mid 80's Johnson VRO 115 Power Problems... HELP!

Hey guys. I have a Mid to late 80's Johnson VRO 115, And it is kicking my butt. I have no clue whats going on with this thing. It used to push about 60-65 MPH, and now its at about 30MPH. It has a HUGE lack of power. I figured maybe it was compression. But I checked, and all 4 cylinders push about 110PSI-115PSI. So, I guess it can't be that. Also, There's ALOT of oil spitting out the exhaust, I know that it's normal to have some, but this is alot. But, I figure that's probably just because the gas is about 7 months old. But this power problem happened before that gas was in there. Way before that gas was in there. I mix 50:1. All plugs fire, new plugs new power packs... I just can't figure out what it is. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Chris

Re: Mid 80's Johnson VRO 115 Power Problems... HELP!

if you have a vro, why are you mixing, has the oil side been disconnected? you have check compression. have you checked spark? if spark is good, sounds like you have a contaminated carb. if it were mine, i would clean and rebuild the carbs, pay attention to the high speed jets, also change all fuel lines to alcohol resistant lines (ethanol is in your fuel).

see the TOP SECRET FILE.

Re: Mid 80's Johnson VRO 115 Power Problems... HELP!

It could be that you are dropping cylinders while continuing to pump oil and gas into it or them.

Since you have compression, and possibly fuel to all cylinders, why don't you get an inductive timing light and check for fire at all ranges

You could run on a portable tank, with a different line and fresh gas to rule out the fuel problem.

Re: Mid 80's Johnson VRO 115 Power Problems... HELP!

Yeah, The VRO is disconnected. I Put it in the river the other day just to see what it would do, and it wouldn't idle. I had to keep the choke halfway up for it to be about idle. I don't know what's going on with it. When I'd put the choke back down. It would just die. I couldn't even get it into gear before it would die... It'll Idle fine here at the house with rabbit ears, but not in the river... any ideas?

Re: Mid 80's Johnson VRO 115 Power Problems... HELP!

Too many possibilities wothout starting to troubleshoot, so start with a compression check and if that is OK, run a spark test.

I think that you will find that your carburetors are fouled, so you might want to get the kits and plan on a carburetor rebuild.

BTW, any V4 can run on muffs with only 2 cylinders working and sound OK; as soon as you put a load on them, games over.