I have an ongoing problem that I have posted before. (Merc 225EFI, Serial number OT364183) Sorry if this gets long, but I want to give an accurate account. This motor is on a 2001 TR20 Triton. It ran great, then one day, lost a piston. Low compression and had a piston slap noise. I had some prior experience, so I honed the cylinder and installed a new piston. It ran fine for about a year, and I had another failure, put a rod through the block. I honestly cannot remember if it was the cylinder that I fixed or not. I was not totally confident in the available rebuilt blocks, so I looked for another solution. I found a running complete motor that SEEMED like a good deal. It was a 98 225EFI, but was told an identical motor to my 2001. I did the install myself, swapping the powerhead onto my engine. It fired right up and seemed fine. NOW the problem. It does not like to idle, and if doing so for very long, the boat really struggles to get out of the hole. I had numerous times where trying to get on plane, it would take a minute or more. Sometimes more like 5 minutes. It also had a lean sneeze. I took it to the local bass boat shop, who many local bass guys swear by. They put in new plugs, (thanks, I did that several times myself) and also adjusted the TPS for the lean sneeze. Also at that time the fuel intake was taken apart, to inspect the reeds and intake gaskets. Those were good. Compression check also was taken with good results. So the sneeze is better, but did nothing for getting out of the hole. (I should also include, since I had parts from two complete motors, I had swapped out every combination of intakes, reeds, and ECMs with no change. I have also checked each plug wire several times for spark, which also was good). I had talked a second time with the mechanic, and also with the experts on this Board, and received very similar input. This has been awhile, so I might not remember everything %100. But as I recall, could be injectors, could be exhaust baffle plugged, it could be the height of the motor on the transom. One by one, those were all checked off the list. A second trip for the boat to the mechanic and he suggested remove the injectors and send them out for testing. The results came back, we need new injectors. So over $2000 later, (they also resealed the lower unit), I thought we finally found the problem! NOPE. It did nothing for the hole shot.
So fast forward to the present. A sort of solution to the hole shot- I discovered that if I raise the motor very high with the hydraulic jack plate, it will almost always come out of the hole. But at this position in relation to the transom, it is way higher than when a manual/fixed position jack plate was in use. So the motor does not like to idle, runs rough at low rpms, dies multiple times before I can get it in gear, but as soon as it does get up on plane, it runs smooth and will push the boat to 70 mph with ease. Once in a while, it seems to run much better at idle and is easier to deal with, but its rare. I am thinking since its running rough, but with new injectors and reeds ok, is it going to be a firing/electrical issue? HELP PLEASE and many thanks in advance.
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Originally Posted by JOE54
