98 Air Nautique poor power, rough idle

[Clamberson]

So my wife and I bought our first boat. 98 air nautique with carb 351 Ford. It ran good when we were looking at buying it, but we had it in the water for the second time this weekend and there’s been some issues pop up. To start, I’m not able to start it without giving it atleast half throttle while cranking. It’s idle is a little rough when cold but nothing terrible.

I pulled a buddy of mine on the wakeboard this weekend and when getting him out of the water it seemed to have very little power. I would put the throttle down and it just acted like I was barely giving it gas. Even without pulling someone it still had a very slow response to me giving it gas.

lastly, I went across the lake at almost full throttle heading back to the dock, but once I slowed down for the channel the idle was very rough, and if I went too slow it would just die on me. Trying to dock was very tough because if I took it out of gear it would die on me every time.

I put new spark plugs in and I have ordered new spark plug wires and “tune up kit” witch includes a new distributor cap and points. Going to change the fuel filter this week as well. Any other recommendations would be appreciated! Thank you

[SilentSeven]

You might want to add a carburetor rebuild to your list. I'd put the tune-up kit on first and see if that cleans the run problems up. But if it doesn't I'd rebuild the carb next.

What did your old plugs look like? Nice evenly coco brown or a mix and match of colors?

For grins, you might also double check the timing....



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[Nautiquehunter]

Its still running points? Check the point gap or dwell should be .019 or 30 degrees dwell. I agree with the above post carb probably needs a rebuild too.