Well, as some of you read since I moved my boat to the St. John's River I've been having some engine performance issues. Living on my small lake I never had the space to notice. WOT RPM would only get around 4100 with a 19 pitch prop. I refused to pitch down to a 17 because 19 is what the boat came with, had to be something wrong. I checked the normal stuff and everything was fine, was kinda lost. The engine has always been a little hard to start and my old chevy v8 days had me thinking the timing might be off. So I finally got a hold of a timing light and around 5pm headed to the marina in between rain storms.
Sure enough, timing was horribly off. At 1000rpm idle it was at 5-6 degrees advance. So I adjusted it to 10-11 degrees advanced and went out for a spin. Mercruiser calls for 10 degrees at 1000rpm. Previously 4100rpms was all she had and it took forever to get there. With the timing set correct? 4600rpms and jumps out of the hole like a bandit. Engine fires up like a new car.
Not very often is an issue this big fixed for free. Dodged a really big bullet. The cloud cover was thick and my phone wouldn't lock GPS often, but when it did WOT MPH is now around 46mph. Not bad for a 4000lb boat with 220hp.
Went out on Lake Monroe to ride over to the city docks and grab some dinner downtown, the water was beautiful and calm passing under i4
Noticed the water getting a little choppy, looked to my rear to see this!!! Better haul ass back home!
Barely made it back but I didn't get wet thank god that's the worst. Ate Wendy's drive through instead.
