A buddy of mine needs help

[gguerry]

A buddy of mine is having a problem with his 89 johnson GT150 VRO...

It won't rev over 3000rpm and wont get up on plane, misses and chugs at 3000rpms. though maybe fuel stabilizer/fogging stuff needs to burn off, maybe a little water in the fuel or maybe I idled a little too long and oiled the a plug a little or something. Well it continued. Checked the plug wires, fuel lines, looked at the filter, choke not hanging up....He took it to someone to look at and he checked the plugs, fuel lines, choke control, butterflys and all the stuff that is checkable without tearing it down somewhat.

Doubts its the fuel/VRO pump since it idles smooth and runs sweet in the below 3000rpm range. VRO going bad would produce problems at all rpms incl idle speed.

Said it could be bad fuel/ethanol thing, but again figured it would affect the motor at all rpms and not do the exact same thing every time over and over (missing & chugging only at 3000rpm)

The regular filter looks clean.

Anyone here have any thoughts??

[mikedb1972]

i may be wrong, and usually am. but i had about the same year motor except a 140hp with similar problems, would idle and run great at lower rpm's but wouldnt plane off and top end was poor
ended up checking the compression and found i had lost a cylinder. i hope this isnt the case, but i ddint see anything in your post about having the compression tested. just thought i would throw it out there as something you might want to have checked, just to be safe.

[gguerry]

This is whats happening....