http://www.optimabatteries.com/en-us...-and-starting/
^ Per Optima's Website on their Group 31 (Only155mins Reserve Capacity), I'm still not getting within their minimum alternator charging specs.
King- did they check your plug wire with a simple volt meter to track it down or was it only throwing the spark under a load?
http://www.bbcboards.net/showthread.php?t=669884&page=2
Sounds like the same issues I am having but its not dragging on start up for me.
Let's slow down here a bit- and cut down on all of the extra batteries and info being thrown into the mix.
Back to the beginning. ADDRESS THE BATTERY AND VOLTAGE PROBLEMS FIRST.
Your ENGINE requires a BARE MINIMUM of 800 CCA or 1000 MCA. That's no accessories, pumps, livewells or graphs: JUST THE ENGINE.
Now you add all of your accessories... for hours you plan to fish, and it's going to require SUBSTANTIALLY more battery capacity.
Stick with the CCA and MCA ratings, as we're using it as a CRANKING battery primarily.
CCA: Rated at ZERO degrees F.
MCA (or CA): Rated at 32 degrees F.
CCA is an excellent indicator to utilize. Now that we've covered this: The sticker, or advertised rating is useful ONLY in terms of SELECTING a battery.
Once you install it, we will ignore the decal, and need to know the ACTUAL CAPACITY the battery physically carries in a load-test. Don't trust the sticker- even a NEW battery may not necessarily be a "good" battery.
You can load test what you have... but you're going to need to upgrade, anyway.
Once you've completed that, let's see where you're at (one short response with an update) and we'll go from there.
Dual Mercury Master Technician- for Mercury Outboards, Mercruiser and Mercury Racing at European Marine in Greenville, SC.
Still consider myself a "Marine Apprentice" after 47 years (learn something new every day).
Mercury Parts, Mercury Outboards, Smartcraft & Accessories, Injector Service, TDR Reeds- BBC Sponsor
Installed a new belt and alternator and took the boat out this afternoon/night.
havent charged batteries since last weekends incident, the only changes made were the belt an alternator.
boat ran fine after casting for wipers for 3 hrs using the bow mount and 73sv and HDS10.
Trolled the dam for another 3 hrs and fired the big motor back up and no hesitation or refusing to get on plane systmptoms the entire night.
Boat at key on only showing 12.0v prior to starting and 13.0v @ idle. 13.5v by 1500rpm and 14.2vdc @ 5000rpm.
keeping my fingers crossed that the gremlin has been banished.
post an update after this weekend. But I was pretty impressed with tonight's results!
That's certainly good news!
When you have a correctly rated battery (and it starts each outing fully-charged), your new alternator is then performing it's intended task ("Maintaining the fully charged state of one properly rated, fully charged cranking battery").
Dual Mercury Master Technician- for Mercury Outboards, Mercruiser and Mercury Racing at European Marine in Greenville, SC.
Still consider myself a "Marine Apprentice" after 47 years (learn something new every day).
Mercury Parts, Mercury Outboards, Smartcraft & Accessories, Injector Service, TDR Reeds- BBC Sponsor
Better start charging those batteries after every outing, or the "gremlin" will be back.
Not trying to undermine or second guess anyone but:
Are you suggesting I Replace my starting battery before every trip!?!
I'm still not grasping the 950+CCA rule of thumb because I have electronics in the boat. Again I can get a 950cca battery but it would only have about 90mins of Reserve and 60aH.
which if we are talking simply the draw of electronics on the battery (my boat has Zero Issues starting) we would want to focus more on Amp Hours and Reserve Time as an HDS take .7amps to run with the back light on full
Nobody said for you to "Replace my starting battery before every trip!?" Most of us Bass fisherman charge ALL the batteries, before an outing with a onboard charger.Originally Posted by 06x6spdGTO
Click on this >>>>>> "BATTERIES THAT MEET THE REQUIREMENT"- Updated 3/15
ALL the information explaining batteries is in that link.
Understood. I charge mine before every outing as well. Just to verify it was more of an alternator problem vs a battery problem I purposely didn't charge them to avoid "changing" too many variables at once. The battery was left in the same state (keep in mind batteries do regain some while simply sitting).
This is allowed me to replicate identically battery voltage before starting the engine to see if the issue would still present itself. It has not as of lately.
Rather than spending $379.99 for a small Chernobyl facility with enough Amp hours/reserve/ and cold cranking Amps to start a C16 caterpillar diesel.
After reviewing some of the batteries presented on that list I truly believe the battery that is in my boat is a better choice over the 31 blue too optima or the others I listed. The are poor performers in terms of Reserve and Amp Hours which truly matter for the locators sake vs the cranking amps as I don't have any problems starting the motor.
It might be a better choice than the optima, but I would for sure heed the advice that has been given and get a bigger battery.
Ran the boat this entire weekend. Did have the slight stalling incident return very breifly this evening. When leaving a spot and idling for only 2-3mins and mashing the throttle. Boat shuddered for maybe 5 secs cleared out and ran fine. Starting to wonder if it's a vapor locking issues as I was in a 6000ft DA on the lake with 99* heat.
That's also a very strong possibility. Really good idea to get in the habit of pumping the bulb firm before each start (especially in warmer temps). Fuel pumps don't really process vapor... they need LIQUID fuel present to function properly.
Pumping the bulb firm solves that problem 99% of the time.
Dual Mercury Master Technician- for Mercury Outboards, Mercruiser and Mercury Racing at European Marine in Greenville, SC.
Still consider myself a "Marine Apprentice" after 47 years (learn something new every day).
Mercury Parts, Mercury Outboards, Smartcraft & Accessories, Injector Service, TDR Reeds- BBC Sponsor
Same boat,
Just figured I would post a winded update.
Recently started having issues getting up on plane again as soon as the weather had warmed up, Noticed I wasn't getting a full charge either... Check out the battery the digital load tester and the results come back that it has a collapsed cell.
Replaced with a new Group 31 X-900 1100 CCA Battery..
Problem seemed to be fixed..
Fast forward to Yesterday... Attempting to run full throttle across the lake I noticed I was shy about 600 RPM @ WOT and the boat seemed a little sluggish as you could here the RPM's flutter a little from 5250-5300 (Keep in Mind my NEW Coils have less than 30 hrs on them). Had a Buddy drive while I went back and pumped the primer Ball. The ball seemed firm but was not rock hard. After about 4-6 squeezes the motor instantly woke up and tore right up to 5950 RPM. I quit squeezing and after about 15 secs it stumbled back to 5200-5300rpm and the oscillating RPM appeared again. So I backed it down to 4500-4800rpm at a cruise and the boat runs smooth and fine as long as you didn't go above 5100rpm.
So tonight I put on a entire NEW Primer Ball, Fuel Line (from Ball to engine), Pulse Pump, and Disassembled and cleaned VST. While in the VST I noticed small parts (about the size of a ball point pen end) of orange plastic. After viewing countless Threads I chalk this up as FUEL LINE coming apart from Ethanol! I decided to blow some forced air through the check valve in the VST and small chunk of orange crud came out..
So I am hoping my issue is fixed but I will have to wait until next weekend to give it another go. I find it hard to believe that the fuel lines could start to deteriorate after only 3 years (had gray line on it before the new ATTWOOD line is a charcoal color)! I am now wondering if I should replace all the lines from the Primer Ball back to the Tank (They are the Black 3/8" line with the Red Stripe), I ran my bore scope camera about 2 feet down from the primer ball back towards the tank and the inner lining has a slightly yellowish tint but didn't appear to be coming apart.
With all this said, if this issue keeps going after the VST cleanout, Pulse Pump, Primer Ball/Line Replacement, where would be the most logical avenue? Fuel lines all the way to the tank or send in the fuel rail for a full cleaning?
Last edited by 06x6spdGTO; 06-05-2017 at 01:50 AM.
You need to read this, do everything step by step, all at the same time and omit nothing - FUEL LINES AND PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
_______
Phil
'09 Hewescraft ProV
'09 150 Optimax
Well Replaced all the Lines from Tank to Motor, New Attwood A-15 Squeeze Ball, New Fuel Filter, NEW Pulse Pump, Cleaned VST, and it runs WOT now and seems to be running fine (Although I was about 250 RPM Shy of Last weekend, but it is 700ft higher elevation and 30* Warmer Today). The Squeeze ball doesn't seem to stay ROCK Hard after a WOT Blast across the lake and The boat has now gone back to intermittent can't plane issues where you will have to baby into the throttle to get it over 2400 RPM (Sometimes 3-6x) before it will Rev over 2200 Rpm and jump onto plane.
Just got done checking Spark with a test light while it was hooked to the Muffs and everything looks good. Kinda at a loss on what to do next or just giving in that its a gutless pig when the weather is Warm in a 6000+' Density Altitude.
Perform a TPI sweep test on a CDS.
Well haven't had to chance to get it to the dealer yet beings its the weekend.. Had the boat out today and stuck at 5200-5300 RPM Again for a good 20 secs feeling like a slight miss... Started Turning to the right and it chugged with a slight popping noise, then cleared up and Rev'd to 5900 RPM like nothing was wrong. I didnt notice if I hit the Trim button UP when its already MAXED out at the top, it would dip down to 5500 RPM and fell like the missing had returned. Let off the button and it would only Rev back up to about 5800RPM until you started to turn right (Running a 19p Revolution 4 Prop) again then come back up to 5900 and stay there until you backed off or hit the Trim button..
I tried WOT multiple times throughout the day and they all resulted in a slight varying RPM at 5200-5300 RPM until you would Turn Right then it would clear out and run back to full song unless you held Trim or backed it down below 5300 RPM in which it couldn't get back to 5800-5900.
The only good news was I had my partner go back and squeeze the ball when it first happened and the ball was still hard!
This is beginning to be a real annoying deal.
Going to put it back into the garage and pull the plugs to see what they look like.
I should add the boat is always fueled with 91 Octane, ZERO Ethanol since last year. As its the only fuel you can get around here that isn't 10% Ethanol.
Last edited by 06x6spdGTO; 06-11-2017 at 04:30 PM.
Sweep Test TPS Results came back fine, No previous error codes:
Idle= 0.42V
WOT= 4.03V
No out of the ordinary spikes or dips in transitioning from WOT to Idle or Idle to WOT..
Any chance this could be a Vapor lock issue as this only happens when its HOT and in High Elevation (3800-4200ft)?
It may simply be your CHOICE of lines. Go and read back through the above link- might have missed it, but didn't see any mention of "A-Wood" in that link (strongly recommend an OEM BULB and OEM LINE from bulb to engine).
You have clearly proven that you had a fuel-starvation problem.
Dual Mercury Master Technician- for Mercury Outboards, Mercruiser and Mercury Racing at European Marine in Greenville, SC.
Still consider myself a "Marine Apprentice" after 47 years (learn something new every day).
Mercury Parts, Mercury Outboards, Smartcraft & Accessories, Injector Service, TDR Reeds- BBC Sponsor
I should clarify, Atwood a-15 3/8" Line and Mercury Fuel Bulb.
I guess I could see an issue with fuel bulb design, but not sure I could see a difference in A-15 3/8" Line. Rather it be Atwood or Mercury. At the end of the day I bet its the same Brunswick in a different package. Thinking Quicksilver vs Mercury.
Either way I think I might have a week fuel pump either low pressure or high pressure inside the VST. I am guessing the Trim issue is putting excessive draw on the pump. Giving the end result of a slight shudder or miss when at WOT and RPM's dipping from 5800-5500rpm.
Turning the boat is likely giving less drag and allowing the boat to rev over the 5200RPM stall point from being lean.
Its that or the additives in todays fuel are causing a vapor lock inside the VST.
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