3rd time out with new to me 272 w/502, lake was glass may have pushed it too hard? Bought boat, 63mph GPS with 2 cornfed sellers, me and the girlfriend on test drive. Got it home, cleaned it up, new fluids, new cap rotor,wires and plugs(one plug had no electrode). Descaled the nasty prop(15 x24 4 blade unknown manufacture). Was hoping for grandeur, first 2 outings water was rough and I was getting used to the ole girl, now the conditions were optimum. 66mph (gps) trimmed out, 4600 RPM, engine sounded fantastic- it has some real nice stainless headers. 2 times the boat just bogged down trying to get up on plane and nearly died. shifting into neutral and letting the engine cough and sputter till it cleared up(bout 30 seconds) then when engine was revving clean and crisp I would shift it into gear and it would not want to go like linkage was binding or something, when it went into gear it did not want to come out. Had to shut off engine force the lever to middle(neutral safety) position, start boat, then it would shift in and out and reverse smoothly. Headed back in when it happened the second time, went to trailer the boat and the shifter stuck in forward. repeated the procedure and it shifted fine again. Drive is factory Bravo 0ne 1.5, it has a Hardin Marine external steering set up (single cylinder). Worried. Hoping it is something common that you guys may have heard of. Please have some good news for me. A little background on me- diesel mechanic currently working at a Kubota dealership. Never cracked into an outdrive, but not afraid to get on in there. Just would rather wait till Winter time. Plus, funds are a bit low after this purchase.

How high were the rpms when you tried to shift?? and shifting a bravo when its not running is not good for it...

Shifting was only done/attempted at idle. Good to know on the not running shifting, thanks.

Pressure test your headers. It sounds to me like they are leaking water into the engine.
Your RPM should be at 5200 trimmed out at full throttle.

There was no sign of water in the oil when I changed it, dont know if there would be from leaky headers. They do not look fun to remove, any way to test on the motor? I felt the same on the RPM, but on the prop slip calc, it was at 8%. I thought maybe that big 15 and ?/8" 4 blade may be too big for the boat? Was planning on getting everything all squared away and trying a different prop. The engine, even with the fresh tune up, is still hard to start sometimes. Not something I expected from the fuel injection. My quadrajet 330hp always fired up instantly. The 24" pitch is even hooking up too well at idle, very hard to park boat and true "no wake" is not possible without going in and out of neutral. I am sure most of it is the novice operator.

Just popped that in the calc at 10% I would still be over 70, That is what I was hoping for after the tune up, figured 63 with 500 extra pounds a scaly prop and only hittin on 7 cylinders, 70 was in the realm of possibility.

Yes. It was black, but no metal in the oil or on the drain/vent plugs

Which you shouldn't expect. Something is wrong. let's take a fuel psi test and report back. if you do not have a fuel psi tester they are cheap, or cheaper yet, AutoZone has free rental tools. Is this a 502 MPI ? Cool fuel or VST ? Serial # ? Very typical for rubber vac hose to fuel psi regulator to be off or cracked....even if 10-15 yrs ago it was typical. LOL.