force 120 running poorly!

Looking for some ideas here. After extensive work my motor is starting fine and stays running at idle. On the hose everything seems perfect. When I went to the lake to test, I'm having problems. Motor is severely lacking power and takes a while to plane, and will max out at 4400 rpm/30 mph (normally 4950 or so and 36/37). The motor seems to bog down severely on the hole shot, but eventually gets going and runs relatively ok but again, lacks power. I've tried adjusting mixture several times and has an effect, but can's seem to get the problem solved by leaning or enriching the mixture. Just rebuilt the motor and have 125-135 psi on all four cylinders and getting spark on all four as well. I have recently removed, cleaned, and reinstalled the carbs which had the effect of eliminating the "wont run in idle" problem but I'm still not getting full power. This problem began suddenly after being caught in a huge downpour a few weeks ago for over an hour (thank god for bilge pumps!). The boat fired up, ran well for about a minute, then lost power all of the sudden. Limped back to the ramp and have been having problems since. Is it possible I've gotten water in the fuel supply and that this is causing all of this? Any help would be greatly appreciated folks!!!!

Re: force 120 running poorly!

Sorry, forgot to add that when I'm coming off of a plane and go into neutral, motor idles extremely high, around 3000 rpm or so, this problem is much less pronounced if I first go to idle in gear for a few seconds, then shift to neutral.

Re: force 120 running poorly!

Have you checked spark and make sure all cylinders are firing?

Also pull the plugs after you run it for a bit, if you see any water droplets or the plugs are extremely clean you've got a water issue. The problem on the hose is that there is no backpressure for the engine to overcome which is why most of these problems with idle, etc only show up at the dock.

The other thing you can do to rule out bad fuel (not necessarly fuel delivery problems) is run the boat from an external tank (I'm assuming your using an internal). Since it's easy to do check your fuel filter and make sure it isnt clogged up too. Hope that helps!

Re: force 120 running poorly!

Some great suggestions there, I will definitely try the external tank idea, hopefully this will fix my problem (although then I have to figure out how it got in there in the first place!). I tested spark and am getting it on all four so I should be good there and filter is clear. I will check plugs for indications of water first and then try the tank. Thanks for the input!