Accelerating problems

[Batesmatthew]

I have a 1993 four wins with a 5.0l omc cobra ford 302 motor I don't know much about boats but my boat will fire right up and rev up fine on throttle only but when trying to accelerate under a load it takes a long time to get up to half speed and it acts super sluggish serious loss in power will only run 20mph wide up and will sometimes backfire and cut out and die but it won't even plane out. Thinking maybe the carb?

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Accelerating problems

Got to start with the basics unless you already know they are sound. Plugs, wires, points, timing, fuel pressure.

 

[RogerBoat]

Re: Accelerating problems

When I first got my 1977 Mackinac with a 302 ford engine, I was very disappointed about performance....in fact the previous two owners said not to expect it to go very fast. Going into the distributor, I discovered that there were no advance springs in it. At the cost of about $3.00 I installed the springs, and reset the timing....It had been set at idle with the distributor fully advanced. Result, a totally different engine. Can't believe two owners over a period of 20 years never discovered this.

Anyway, either check for broken springs or put a timing light on it and see if the spark advance works when you rev up the engine.

 

[boaterinsd]

Re: Accelerating problems

Thats a good idea, somebody should add the timing advance ck and spring visual ck in the poor performance sticky at the top of the forum.