New to the site and forum, I searched to find answers on this but haven’t found anything like this anywhere.
I bought a 1987 Chaparral 178X with a Mercruiser 3.0. It was rough to start and took a bit of cranking to get going at first.
Once I changed the battery it started a lot better but the engine still seemed to run a little rough. I’m new to this and aren’t used to carbed engines all that much.
Long story short, we had a couple good weekends after that and then I let it sit for a week. Tried to start it up and it only ran for a couple seconds and would only start at full throttle and would stall. It fired up a couple times for 5-10 seconds but then stalled out.
I ended up cleaning out all the fuel lines and changed out the fuel pump (mechanical). And it didn’t start up at first.
Checked the firing order and the previous owner had it at 1-4-3-2 instead of 1-3-4-2.
Problem is, it seems it ran better on the 1-4-3-2 firing order when we had it out. With the correct order it seems like it is backfiring, engine is kicking on the mounts when it’s running.
Also the distributor cap does not seem aligned where it should be. From what I have seen online the #1 cylinder should be plugged into the cap at around a 1 o’clock position, mine is about 5 o’clock.
if I change it to 1 o’clock to start the firing order it won’t fire, but if the #1 cylinder is at 5 o’clock it fires but runs rough.
I want to take the boat out but don’t want to blow up the engine by misfiring it on water.
any suggestions on what to do?
I bought a 1987 Chaparral 178X with a Mercruiser 3.0. It was rough to start and took a bit of cranking to get going at first.
Once I changed the battery it started a lot better but the engine still seemed to run a little rough. I’m new to this and aren’t used to carbed engines all that much.
Long story short, we had a couple good weekends after that and then I let it sit for a week. Tried to start it up and it only ran for a couple seconds and would only start at full throttle and would stall. It fired up a couple times for 5-10 seconds but then stalled out.
I ended up cleaning out all the fuel lines and changed out the fuel pump (mechanical). And it didn’t start up at first.
Checked the firing order and the previous owner had it at 1-4-3-2 instead of 1-3-4-2.
Problem is, it seems it ran better on the 1-4-3-2 firing order when we had it out. With the correct order it seems like it is backfiring, engine is kicking on the mounts when it’s running.
Also the distributor cap does not seem aligned where it should be. From what I have seen online the #1 cylinder should be plugged into the cap at around a 1 o’clock position, mine is about 5 o’clock.
if I change it to 1 o’clock to start the firing order it won’t fire, but if the #1 cylinder is at 5 o’clock it fires but runs rough.
I want to take the boat out but don’t want to blow up the engine by misfiring it on water.
any suggestions on what to do?
