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Fuel starvation when adding ballast to carbureted Malibu


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Okay, so we took our new to us....83 skier out today for the first time with fat sacks. About 2 minutes into the pull we lost rpm and the motor shuddered to an idol.

In suspect the the extreme bow rise is causing fuel starvation of some sort. Runs perfect without the ballast.

Any thoughts out there?

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Sounds reasonable. What kind of carb are you running? Might need to either raise the floats or switch to something like a quadrajet that is happy running at most any angle.

If you search an off road site like pirate4x4 you should find some tricks for your particular carb.

Edited by oldjeep
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Congrats on getting a great boat!

What happened after it "shuddered to an idle"? Did it stay running? Did it stall? Did you try giving it throttle a few times and it just wouldn't take off/get over a certain rpm? Did you empty the sacs and it immediately returned to normal. Or did you just call it a day?

Repeat that with some people in the boat and if it happens move pple forward to level the boat. Or sac it out level and see if it happens.I doubt its related to angle. Prob weight is pinching a fuel line. are your floors soft?

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Could be going super rich also, if the fuel level in the float bowl gets above the level of the booster venture, gas will just dribble though them.

On a direct drive like yours, the engine is already angled down toward the back, with the bow up this angle gets pretty severe. This really wasn't an issue until people started adding ballast to surf/wakeboard. Some engines came with a "wedge" under the carburetor to level it out. You could try adding one if you don't already have one.

What carburetor do you have?

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Okay, so I checked the float level and it's perfect. I'm going to check for a pinched fuel line as well. Floors are good, but it could be bowing the floors some. It does not have a carburetor wedge, so I bought the moroso 5-degree. I figure with the 14 degree prop angle plus the extreme bow rise, it's gotta be messing with the floats.

It stumbled to an idle, then kept running. Cleared out fine in neutral with sacks full (which leads me to believe its not pinching a line), I suspect once it filled the bowls back up it was fine.

It's a holley 4-bbl, maybe 600 cfm

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OK, checked the fuel line all the way to the tank, no way it's being pinched. It's gotta be the angle of the dangle. I'll install the carb wedge and repost Monday.

Cheers

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Might want to check your fuel vent as well. Older boats tend to have more chine spray and when you weigh them down, the chine spray starts swamping your fuel vent. You may be sucking in a lot of water. My old carbureted boat didn't have any problems even when wakesurfing (after moving the fuel vent) and you had to stand to see over the bow.

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OK, I put the 5-degree wedge in and it runs perfect now. That was the issue. Float bowls were drying up due to the angle. Next: I have to relocate the fuel overflow. Where did you guys relocate yours to?

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OK, I put the 5-degree wedge in and it runs perfect now. That was the issue. Float bowls were drying up due to the angle. Next: I have to relocate the fuel overflow. Where did you guys relocate yours to?

When I had a boat that had problems with water ingestion, I moved it to the top deck near the windshield. You may be able to get away with a shorter or easier location but on that boat, I had a lot of chine spray even 5 feet up near the bond line.

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