'97 115 intermittant cold miss

[Cricket Too]

I've noticed lately that when I start my engine when cold, it has a noticable miss every now and then, not steady, until it warms up.

It will do it while idling at the dock and then sometimes on the way down the canal, but once I get out and open it up, it takes right off and has no problem and has no miss after that.

It has also started to sneeze slightly when first started cold, and sometimes will sneeze hard and stall right out, a pretty violent stall, after just starting cold. Once re-started it will run fine, unless of course it decides to have that random miss at idle.

My voltage has started creeping up past 15V while cruising too, at about anywhere from 4200-4400 RPM. It will hold steady at 15V and then creep up to close to 16V and then come back down, randomly. Not sure if this is completely unrelated or not.

I am going to pull the carbs and clean and rebuild them over the winter, but the boat is in the water right and will be for another month or so.

Any idea of what the random miss could be? It doesn't do it all the time.

Thanks.

 

[a70eliminator]

Re: '97 115 intermittant cold miss

Could be that the offending cylinder has the weakest compression and plug may be loading up, then piston gets hot expands and compression comes up. Cold motors run rich till they warm up good. Take a set of comp. readings check plug gaps, i'm thinking if the carb was the culprit you would have the mis all the time.

 

[Cricket Too]

Re: '97 115 intermittant cold miss

Yeah I don't really think the carbs are the culprit, just wanted to mention that I plan on rebuilding them.

I put new plugs and wires in about 2 months ago, 15hrs or so, and the old plugs that came out showed no sign of a lean condition on any cylinder.

It starts right up when cold, barely needs to crank. I usually advance the idle on start up to the point where it will fire right up to about 2K or 2200RPM once it fires over. Then I pull it back to about 1800 or so, and it will usually start to falter a little bit and then I will bump the key in to keep it running.

Usually it will then have a hard sneeze and stall pretty abuptly, shakes the steering wheel when it does this. I hate when it does that.

I should mention that sometimes my ignition switch sticks and after it starts the ignition will spring back to the OFF position, but somehow it keeps running, when you try to correct the key position, it will stall. I know I need a new switch, that will get done over the winter too.

Once you start it back up, it will idle perfectly, then every now and then, not all the time, it will have that miss. Then sometimes it will do it in gear as I idle down the canal.

 

[Cricket Too]

Re: '97 115 intermittant cold miss

Bump^^^

 

[MakoNY]

Re: '97 115 intermittant cold miss

I have a similar problem with my engine, same engine, mine is a '98.

Sneezes/spits when I first start it up, and then stalls pretty violently.

 

[Cricket Too]

Re: '97 115 intermittant cold miss

Nobody, any ideas??