2002, 225 EFI trouble

[kylewalker]

ot747779

The engine sat for years as my dad was ill for some time before he died. I drained the fuel tank, and VST. Cleaned the VST. I ran it on the lake with fresh gas and it ran well. Steering needed bleeding, but engine worked fine. It didn't sell right away, so I would start it from time to time and then let it run out of fuel.

I sold it, and the buyer says it is down on power. I went to the lake with him and sure enough, no more than 1000 rpm. Fuel pressure is good, verified with fluid filled optimax gauges. No alarms. I replaced the T.P.S. Same result.

I had the new owner put it in gear and add throttle to the point where it started to fail. Pulled spark plug boots off to hear that each have spark. Adding starting fluid underway, engine performs.

What in the world could this be? All the injectors decided to get dirty? Bad ECU? I took it to a shop in marble falls, TX, where they say they have computers old enough to see the data. Haven't heard back yet. Maybe is swapped a bad TPS for another bad one?

Also are these coils, or CDM?

Thanks in advance.

[Fishwhisper]

I would have the injectors cleaned and tested. Those should be CDMs and the ECU on those motors are seemingly more reliable than the older ones, but not infallible.

[KIRCHNER]

Draining the tank &vst you most likely loosened debris somewhere, varnish from old fuel, scale etc. do all your filters, canister too, hoses, did you check the vst, needle/seat my 2 cts

[4Speed]

Similar situation with a in line 115 Mercury. My dad passed and the motor ran great prior to going into storage for a year or two. Just a few gallons of ethanol based fuel left in the gas tank destroyed the 20 year old glassed in fiberglass tank (internal delamination) and also destroyed the fuel pickup & the motor would only turn about 3k at WOT. It ran good at idle. Tried a clean portable tank with a little fuel treatment and the motor ran like new.

Just want to add...When we tried the portable tank, we also used the portable tank fuel line and primer bulb and the oil injection was also removed by the dealer several years prior to going into storage as my dad was a fan of pre mixing the oil and gas once he hard about the plastic oil pump drive.

[Chaz]

2002 was the year where they changed over from early to late model. Early had twin electronic box's on the back. Late has a single Motorola box on the starboard side.

Both use a "shift interrupt" switch located in / under the shift cable slide on the port side. If it will free rev in neutral, but not in gear then I would look to see if that switch is stuck or if the ball on the end of the switch has worn the sliding block that the cable attaches to enough that the motor thinks that it's still in neutral. Many times you can just turn block around and have a brand new side to use. ;)

But as said in previous posts, go thru the fuel system to be sure its working properly.