Mercruiser 5.7 Surging

kyles609

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Aug 31, 2016
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Turn out the fuel testers instructions of "tighten hand tight" are wrong and hand tight is too tight cutting off fuel supply to the gauge. I'm able to get fuel pressure by backing off and slowly threading until fuel stops spilling with both gauges. One indicates 9-10 psi and the other indicates about 8 psi. Here is a video, hopefully this is reliable enough for a lake test now. Very frustrating getting a reading with these testers

https://youtu.be/u1j3s2EOZDs
 

kyles609

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Aug 31, 2016
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Your fuel pressure should be good, and my guess is its a bit less then 8 psi. The gauge your using is for a fuel injected boat, 0 to 100 psi. The one that is normally used for carb motors is a vacuum fuel pump tester and scale is 0 to 10 psi so the resolution is better.
https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-W80594-Vacuum-Tester/dp/B000FW2O1G

I agree. I wish I had got that from the start. How does that hook up to my throttle body for testing?

At least I'll be able to see the pressure on the go soon now.
 

alldodge

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I agree. I wish I had got that from the start. How does that hook up to my throttle body for testing?

.

It hooks up in the same location but you don't have a throttle body, don't you have a carb?

If you had a throttle body the pressure should be around 30 psi and would use the gauge you are using.
 

kyles609

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Aug 31, 2016
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It hooks up in the same location but you don't have a throttle body, don't you have a carb?

If you had a throttle body the pressure should be around 30 psi and would use the gauge you are using.

Yes, I have a carb. The Tee I was using was called TBI adapter for GM so I assumed that. I just didn't see any brass fittings in the product image. Thanks
 

kyles609

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Aug 31, 2016
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18
It hooks up in the same location but you don't have a throttle body, don't you have a carb?

If you had a throttle body the pressure should be around 30 psi and would use the gauge you are using.

Thanks AllDodge for your follow up info. I went out and got the vacuum/pressure gauge and actually hooked both up side by side. They both seem to be showing 8-9psi at idle so I think the gauge is correct (other fuel injection gauge as well). I don't have a dock on my ramp so I'm still waiting for a hand getting it on the lake.

https://youtu.be/5-VKabh89dI
Now I'm a little worried the pressure is too high
 

alldodge

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In that case your pressure is to high and the carb needle valve is not designed to hold that pressure. You might be doing a bit of flooding, which could be giving you the surge and stumble
 

kyles609

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Aug 31, 2016
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Well just to follow up and provide a solution to anyone seeing this in a google search I finally got the boat on the water with two fuel pressure gauges hooked up and somehow the boat ran perfect for the first time in awhile. The only thing that I had done was attaching and reattaching the spark plug wires when I was checking for any cracked ones or any crunchy feeling ones that was suggested to me. I had pulled all 8 plug wires at the distributor previously and had pulled 4 off of the plugs at the motor but something after pulling the other 4 seems to have fixed my issue. I can't believe how much time I spent on this but next time I'll be sure to check my plugs and wires before I get this deep.

To add to the debate of fuel pressure, I have read in my Seloc manual that 3-7 psi was acceptable and I'm basically showing 6-10 psi. Maybe the 2 high pressure gauges and 1 low pressure gauge are all off by exactly the same amount but I'm thinking 6-10 psi is acceptable for my boat. I never saw it drop below 5.5-6.0 under the largest load I could give it and it's running perfect now. No hesitation, no surging, planes out much quicker, and finally achieving WOT of 4400 RPM and 47 mph like it used to.

Thank you for all of your suggestions, I now know my simple little fuel system inside and out.
 
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