I have had this rig for 15 years or so and just recently started to have some issues. Starting this season an issue developed where the boat would start and idle great but at WOT, it struggled to get on plane and would bog out at WOT. I ended up taking it to a mechanic who worked on it on 2 separate occasions. He first replaced the power pack, plug wires, plugs and the optical sensor. The motor still ran bad so I took it back to him. He then replaced the Stator and disconnected the VRO (he did this somewhat on his own, it was oiling fine prior; he stated that he thought maybe the VRO was bad so he disconnected it and plugged it). After I got the boat back, the WOT problem was gone, it runs like a scalded dog on the top end but it struggled to idle and low speed was not good. I only ran it a few times like this and was hoping that it was an overmix since the VRO was disconnected and the premix ratio was thought to be rather rich. As the weather turned colder, the last two times out I had a really hard time to get it to start at all, and this past weekend it wouldnt start at all. I got it home and dug into it. I saw where he had disconnected the oil inlet to the VRO and also disconnected a wiring harness on the VRO along with a 2 wire circuit that I am assuming is an oil tank sensor. I reconnected the VRO oil line and plugged both wiring harnesses back up. I threw some muffs on it and it cranked and ran almost immediately. I am not sure why disconnecting the VRO pump would cause it not to run at all. The only real side affect I notice with the VRO re-connected is that I have a constant low oil alarm on the tach. Any idea what is going on? The oil tank is probably 1/4th of the way full. When the alarm sounds, it stays on for a long period of time, I would say 20+ seconds and the only light lit on the tach is the low oil light.
Thanks for any insight.