Got in late last night, and now I get to pay for my week off last week with hell week here at work. Two people out, so I get to do three jobs.

I'll make it brief. Got down there, dropped boat in, fired up fine, put it in the slip for the night because it was late, drank heavily to celebrate. Next morning, loaded wife and her sister and headed out for an easy cruise around the lake. Everything was going fine, starting to "feel the magic" of boating again. Throttled down in a cove, and it died on me. Uh oh! Well, I think I just had the idle mixture screws a little on the lean side, because it would idle OK but die going into gear. Played with that, but it just didn't want to idle very well for me. Did fine once into the power circuit. I noticed stbd idle screw had no effect, so figured there must be some junk in the air bleed or internal passages. Spent most of the day floating and having beer sodas. Cruised back in and pulled carb that night and cleaned it with some of the bargain $8 carb cleaner bought from the marina. Seemed to idle better, but still dying in gear. Pulled carb again and tore it down, and this time took a safety pin to clean out passages in air bleeds, cleaned base plate passages, etc. Seemed to idle better, and idle mixture screws were now both working. But it was still wanting to die going into gear unless I jiggled the throttle to kick in the accel pumps and richen it up.

I said phuk it, going to take kids out on the tube anyway since they had been begging be all weekend. Dragged them around the lake for a while (believe me, that takeoff almost yanked the tube out from under them), and after a while it decided to start behaving and actually idled in gear without stalling. Spent the rest of the day yesterday dragging them around.

I still haven't gone past half throttle on this thing - will do that next week when I am closer to home and not having the whole family depending on me for a boat ride. I still want to be sure my carb issues are squared away before leaning on it too much. My reversion paranoia is not completely gone - this stalling in gear crap, along with seeing some steam coming from the exhaust on takeoff, has it going again. What the hell, I'll pull a couple of plugs next week when I'm out playing with it, maybe even pull a header to appease my paranoia. But I at least have a boat that moves under it's own power again!

Budman, which ign module are you running ? V8? OR V6?

A little more timing at idle could help it

Assuming this is a Holley carb, I have never had good luck just disassembling and cleaning out with carb clean, compressed air, etc. I disassemble the carb fully and submerge them in a 5 gallon bucket of carb cleaner. Depending on how dirty the carb is and what it was running like sometimes they soak for an hour, sometimes for 5 hours. This usually cleans out any flotsom and jotsom that ends up in the carb body.

Hey MT, yeah, I thought of that too. I'm running a Tbolt IV 24* V8 module, initial timing set at 10* BTDC, total of 34*. I would like to switch to a 20* module, which would allow me to dial in an additional 4* initial advance. Friend of mine has a 20 on his HP500 and likes the way it runs with it. He has a V6 module too that he used to run with his blower motor, but not sure if that will make it hard on the starter to turn it over. Also, isn't there something extra you have to do to run a V6 module on a V8 besides just plugging it in?

Try the V6 module. My 9:1 blown engine cranks over just fine with timing locked. Just set the timing for full advance and let the initial fall where it falls.

MT, can you elaborate on what it means to have the timing "locked"? Is there something specific that has to be done to the module or distributor? I understand what you are saying about setting the total timing with the V6 module instead of worrying about initial timing. I did a little reading on the V6 modules, and my understanding is that they only provide about 10* of advance that can kick in at less than 1000 RPM on a V8 engine. This would mean that my initial advance would probably end up around 24* to establish a total timing of 34* BTDC. Would there typically be issues cranking an engine with this much initial timing? My CR is relatively low - around 9.25:1. I am using one of the Merc mini starters.

Wondering if the HP module with the 20* advance might be the best choice here.

Thanks for the help.

Timing locked is a common thing alot of guys do that are running blowers, big cams, etc. For example on my setup, the mechanical advance inside my MSD distributor, is 'locked" out .Meaning there is no centrifugal advance. Say 34* is what you want. Locked, simply means its always at 34*. Whether it be idle, cruise, or WOT.

I used to run the 18* bushing in my distributor. What that meant, was that it would give me 18* of mechanical advance, and the springs determined WHEN that advance came in. I used to run my timing at that time at 30* total, which gave me 12* at idle. With that setup, a 250 blower, and a dominator carb, the engine always wanted to puke when shifting, and generally didnt idle all that well. Once I locked the timing, it no longer stalled, and the idle cleaned up much better.

Being that you have the merc ignition, i think the V6 module is the way to go imo. You should have no starter issues. I have many boat buddies who run their stuff locked at 32, 34, 35, etc, and have no starting issues.

If you really want to get trick, theres some great distributors out there now, that have fully programmable timing curves built in. You can do things like start retard, keep timing up at idle, then pull some back at peak torque, and add it back in at wot, etc. Thats really the best setup. But, they are around 350-450 bucks for one of those.

I also am using the 24* module with 10* initial and a total of 34 with my 509.....idle is OK.....I have a 22* module as a spare that I can use if I have to buy gas on the water. I use 93 with my 10.2-1 C/R.....I am using a mighty demon 850 and it took me a while to get the idle right. I had to make sure the throttle blades were not open to far at idle and bypassing the idle circuit. I mounted an AEM air/fuel gauge and it really helped getting the idle right..... Here is a quick vid o my idle before tuning and it was very rich a 11.5-1....... It is now around 13.5-14.0 at idle and has a nice, snappy bark now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0for...e_gdata_player

Is that technical jargon for schit and krap ? LOL.