2004 TZX200 Yamaha 2003EFI

[ranger350v]

Hey fellows,
I've got a buddy who runs a 2004 TZX200 with a 2003 Yamaha 200EFI, the story is that we went to Lake Degray a couple of weeks ago, boat ran fine on launch out and then the winds picked up to 25kts and the main lake was ponding some rough swells. We would run over to a new location, get up on plane(WOT) and the motor seemed like it wanted to die out than come back up like it was starving for fuel. It wasn't bad at first but you could tell it had a problem. Later in the day on the way back to the launch we could not get it up on plane for the motor would die out, had to idle back to the launch area. Once we loaded the boat up on the trailer we looked at the fuel tanks and both tanks had somewhere around 1/4 of gas in them, so we figured that the gas was low and the high swell was causing the gas to sloush around and that the motor was sucking air. Well he took the boat and filled up both tanks and then took it out on the Arkansas river over this weekend, water was at a slight chop but had the same problem motor wanted to die out. I told him to check the primer bulb and maybe see if he has a fuel filter, may have sucked something up from the last trip. What do you guys think it might be?

[Hamfisted]

Does he have a Racor fuel/water separator installed in the fuel line? How old is it? (If none is installed it should be corrected ASAP....). How old is the primary filter under the hood? Is it brown? It should be yellow. Change it if it's brown. Its very common after boats sit up for the winter to have these fuel filter related problems in the spring.
Is he using a fuel stabilizer in his fuel tanks? (Sta-Bil..... Walmart).

-Mike

[ranger350v]

I will get in touch with him this afternoon to see what he says. I know he bought the boat this past October, I think it had 70 or 74 hours on the motor. He did not run it that much this winter. We were thinking filters but really didn't know..

[HaulinBass]

Where you able to squeeze the primer bulb while the engine was trying to die out? Filters are the next check.

[ranger350v]

According to my buddy, the bulb is still firm

[HaulinBass]

Yes, but try and prime it while the engine is dying. Does that cause the engine to run better? All filters would be next.

[ewallstate]

See my post on the skeeter forum.