2.3L Missing under load, now spark is gone...

hansjesg

Recruit
Joined
Aug 2, 2011
Messages
3
I have a '90 VIP with a 2.3 power plant. Bought it in the winter "handy man special edition" I have replaced cap, rotor, condensor, not plugs recently, have tried two different coils, set the dwell and timing and it advances. Recently removed the water seperator and put an aux tank in the back and ran a hose right to the pump with an inline filter then to the carb, not perfect, but wanted to eliminate gas tank issues.
When it is on the trailer with the muffs on it starts runs great can run it up to wide open breifly no hesitation, thought we had it dialed in.
Take it out on the lake, pull away from the dock roll up on the throttle everything feels nice, go back to the dock to pick my friend up and turn it around and go back out...roll on the throttle good up to about half throttle then it starts to miss and pop, pull the throttle back to half and it smoothes out. Let it back off the plain, hit the thottle and it misses and doesn't want to get back up on a plane. Easing into the throttle seemed to make it work better than jabbing on it, but no matter what it will not run smoothly after half throttle. So we stopped and thought about the situation for a bit and had a beer....hit the key, cranks but now no spark, shook wires looked around hooked and unhooked main engine harness, still no spark...luckily we were pretty close to the dock....So right now, I have a boat on the trailer with no spark and wasn't running right before...has ran like this it's whole career but the lack of spark is new.
Has a Holley carb on it right now, have a rochester available. We thought fuel until the spark disappeared.
Does anyone have thoughts, ideas.
We are basically at a loss of a next step.
 

byrontony

Cadet
Joined
Apr 7, 2010
Messages
17
Re: 2.3L Missing under load, now spark is gone...

Have you checked your kill switch? You might try wiggling that around a bit as it will definitely kill your spark.
 

sea wolf

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Apr 3, 2002
Messages
1,219
Re: 2.3L Missing under load, now spark is gone...

I have a '90 VIP with a 2.3 power plant. Bought it in the winter "handy man special edition" I have replaced cap, rotor, condensor, not plugs recently, have tried two different coils, set the dwell and timing and it advances. Recently removed the water seperator and put an aux tank in the back and ran a hose right to the pump with an inline filter then to the carb, not perfect, but wanted to eliminate gas tank issues.
When it is on the trailer with the muffs on it starts runs great can run it up to wide open breifly no hesitation, thought we had it dialed in.
Take it out on the lake, pull away from the dock roll up on the throttle everything feels nice, go back to the dock to pick my friend up and turn it around and go back out...roll on the throttle good up to about half throttle then it starts to miss and pop, pull the throttle back to half and it smoothes out. Let it back off the plain, hit the thottle and it misses and doesn't want to get back up on a plane. Easing into the throttle seemed to make it work better than jabbing on it, but no matter what it will not run smoothly after half throttle. So we stopped and thought about the situation for a bit and had a beer....hit the key, cranks but now no spark, shook wires looked around hooked and unhooked main engine harness, still no spark...luckily we were pretty close to the dock....So right now, I have a boat on the trailer with no spark and wasn't running right before...has ran like this it's whole career but the lack of spark is new.
Has a Holley carb on it right now, have a rochester available. We thought fuel until the spark disappeared.
Does anyone have thoughts, ideas.
We are basically at a loss of a next step.
Change the points.
 

hansjesg

Recruit
Joined
Aug 2, 2011
Messages
3
Re: 2.3L Missing under load, now spark is gone...

Also a thing I noticed was that when we had all the people in the back of the boat it ran worse while trying to get up on a plane. When we put people up front it runs ok on the bottom but not when we wind it up on a level plane it still starts popping. Points are on order.
 

hansjesg

Recruit
Joined
Aug 2, 2011
Messages
3
Re: 2.3L Missing under load, now spark is gone...

Made some adjustments, new points, cleaned up the ground area, reset gap, cleaned up the post that sticks out for the tach I believe. Also put the rochester carb on it. Ran much better, hit the throttle, slow or fast it wound up perfect....went and idled around for a while at about 2500 went to open it up, missed like crazy, idle it back try to ease into it, no dice....tried it again and it died....checked for spark, still had that. Cranked on it for a while finally got it going again...thinking it could have got loaded up and then flooded? Seemed to clean itself out and then ran good when ya ease into the first 25% and then you can put the hammer down. Wondering if anyone knows what the voltage is supposed to be between the two terminals on the coil? As in I gapped the points, but I'm not sure that they are perfect on the dwell setting.
 
Top