97 sundancer 250 STALLING out

[itsfitz911]

97 sundancer 250, 454 merc. The boat runs great sometimes. But once in a while I go to start it up and it stalls when I bring the rpms down. But once I get it running its fine. It almost seems like its missing a spark. I smell the fuel. It then blows black smoke for just a second then is good. If anybody could help, that would be great.....

 

[Hampton]

I had the same on my '97 250, but with a 5.7l EFI LX. I took it to the dealer. They charged me $200 to run around in my boat for 2 hours with no problems. Next time out - it died. Think: Fuel, Air, Spark. You covered fuel. Air isn't normally an issue. Check spark. I took my distributor cap off and it was covered in salt and corrosion. To top it off, it was an auto dist cap and rotor.

I called the dealer. He told me to bring it in. Instead, I went to Autozone and bought MARINE dist cap and rotor for about $20. I also bought wires. I took the rest into my SR serv mngr office and plunked it down on his desk, corrosion, salt and all. I got my $200 back. That was the day I entered the boat repair business (my boats only). That pissed me off.

Check your dist cap for corrosion.

 

[Lazy Daze]

Is it carb'd or fuel injected?

 

[itsfitz911]

97 sundancer 250, 454 merc. The boat runs great sometimes. But once in a while I go to start it up and it stalls when I bring the rpms down. But once I get it running its fine. It almost seems like its missing a spark. I smell the fuel. It then blows black smoke for just a second then is good. If anybody could help, that would be great.....

Thanks for the quick reply.... I had the same feeling about the cap. Well try it and see!