Need some performance numbers

How was it used?? If the presvious owner just ran slowly and you are pushing it onto plane the bad/seperated fuel might not have shown up.

Dump the fuel filters into a clear jug and see whats up.
 
quote:
The holleys had been butchered by that same boatyard and had water damage.
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how dis you get rid of the water that did the damage????????

ethanol and water make for bad corrosion in the entire fuel system, the remaining fuel will run a model T but has low octane that makes pistons unhappy.
 
It runs on non ethanol fuel, I have been draining the racors for the past year but have never had any water come out of them (I am a pilot and know about sumping for water).
The tanks where opened through the fuel level senders and totally pumped out and cleaned before I got involved with this boat. I personally pulled the senders to inspect the tanks and reseal them properly.
Like I said the port engine is new and the starboard I have had the heads of to have them redone, they are both in very good shape.

I called Carver again earlier today but they could not find any specs/info on what anti syphone valve where used, I was just going to order new ones and replace them all in one go but now I will need to pull one or 2 if the engines and genny ones are not the same before I can see where I can get some new ones.

This whole water in the fuel thing was pretty stupid. It all started with badly corroded deckfills and missing o-rings. The previous owner was clueless and could not get the boat started any more so it was moved to the boatyard who found the the bad fills but did not replace them but instead charged 2x$60 for 2 new o-rings and then tried to run the engines on the contaminated fuel. They managed to get them to run took it out for a test run at which point they managed to totally shrapnel the #4 piston. The word was they never heard and or noticed anything wrong until the engine started to run bad and lost power. That is when they opened up the tanks and had an outside tankcleaning company come in. And the yard stripped the port engine to find the damage at which point they told the previous owner that it would need a new engine and that he should just scrap the boat.
Being that the man was old and in bad health he put it up for sale. That is the point where my involvement starts.
 
so has this problem been going on for a year???
 
With the old holleys the port engine would surge and at times and die in heavy seas to only start right back up as long as the boat was run at rpms less than 2500. If you tried to go above that the port engine would start to run erratic and rough because the carb would mess up by dumping loads of fuel in the engine. It would stay that way until it had sat over night and it would run ok again as long as you did not try to open it up.
As I stated before those holleys had damage from water and had been butchered by the boatyard, there was no saving them.
 
I had a very similar problem with my 380 Santego. Turned out it was the A/S valve. Pulling it off and cleaning it would solve the problem. I found rust chips and what looked like fiber hair caught up on the ball checkvalve. Choppy water would cause the problem almost immediately-my 23 yr. old tanks apparently have gathered up a significant amount of crap over the years-which leads to the question why were the tanks even cleaned? Was there problems at that time with crap in the tank? The A/S valves should be located at the rear of the tanks where the pickup hose connects.
 
I spend hours yesterday messing with these anti syphon valves. I was able to get to the ones on the port side and found that they used 2 different styles. One is a style that you can split but seems to have a very low flow capacity and the others where the ones that pressed together. The one that comes apart was clean but is probably a problem because of the very low flow capacity and the other two had crap in them and I could not get them cleaned, so I guess I will be springing for 6 new ones.
Still I in principle understand the requirement but I can also see that these valves could lead to major problems. They are positioned before the filters so any crap gets pulled into them to then get stuck there. As a result they can and will block flow, which can be very problematic if it kills an engine at a bad time and with crap stuck in there it is even very doubtful that they would ever seat right in case of a fuelline braking. To me this one of those "great ideas" dreamed up by someone flying a desk and was never truly properly thought through, like so many others.
 
An alternative is to use solenoid valves activated when you turn the key on. Actually anchor marine installed that for me years ago... Worked well

As a test, you can bypass them or put manual valves you turn off after testing unti you get replacements
 
I have thought of that too Pascal.
In reading the requirements I have come to think that I do not even need them at the top of the dip tubes . All fuel lines run above the tanks to the fuel selector valve panel, they do not drop below the top of the tanks till after this panel and in reading the reqs I would say that this is the point where you would have to install them and it would be possible to even do so after the filters. Doing it this way would mean only 3 of them and no issue of crap collecting in them.
 
Sabre....you kinda lost me when you said you needed six of them. You should only need 2 A/S valve per tank-assuming you have crossover manifold to allow pumping from each tank to either engine. Where do the other 2 A/S valves come into play?
 
On this boat even the cross over have their own dip tubes and the genny can be ran on either tanks also with its own dip tubes.
So 2 for the genny, 2 for normal tank to engine plus 2 for the cross over: are we having fun yet!
 
The maker probably put them there because some code required then for safety. Personally I have not found most safety cods to be over done and usually they have good reasoning behind them but heck you probably know better.
 
When we purchased our 3257 the marina selling the boat had to replace the motor because it was toast, however they did not know it and sold it it me, then they relized what happened after we signed the contract to purchase the boat. they wanted out of the sale and I said no way. You have to replace the engine. which they did.

Now It took me 7 years to figure out my problem on my old boat. I had the same issue with turnings the correct rpms on my starboard motor and it was a new motor. I had 3 different marinas look at it. They could not figure out what was causing the engine to choke at 3300 rpms. It only occurred when running in rough water conditions, and alway in the Long Island Sound every year. We did everything from checking and replacing and rebuilding the carb, changed fuel pump, changing the anti siphon valve, plugs wires, coil, cap rotor, you name it we did it. It was still there.
After years of dealing with the issue I did my own investigation and monitored when this would occur.
It turns out I was ingesting water all the time and this is how I figured it out. I asked a few people to come on board with us so I could look at a few thing while running at full load. While we were running I looked at the fuel fill overflow vents to see what they looked like. Sure enough, my starboard overflow vent was sucking in water as we were on plane. The spray from the line created a stream of water that passed right over the fuel air vent. The vents were install about two inches too low.

BINGO found the problem... Fixed the issue by adding clam shells over the vent to prevent water ingestions on both port and starboard sides. So everything was great for the next 3 years. We came back from a 2 1/2 week vacation out at Montauk, Block, Shelter and right at the end of our trip about 5 mile from our marina the motor chokes a little and stalled. I started it back up and made it to the marina, thinking it was something else. Next week I returned to the boat and stared it and it was rough as hell. Checked everything and then did a compression check. Turns our 5 cylinders were bad. Time for new heads.

So in the end, my new engine ingested water and destroyed the heads. After thinking about this, that is what cause the first engine to get destroyed. After we fixed the heads, that boat ran better than the day it was new. Then we sold her, not because of the engine, but the kids were getting bigger and we needed a bigger boat.

Moral of the story, water and fuel do not mix.

Good luck and I hope you are able to fix this issue.
 
Hi Bob,

the water was coming in through the fills, since I have replaced them and the tanks where pumped out ( 2 years ago) I have not had any water in the fuel at all. How ever the pumps might have been damaged by the water that pasted through them so I am replacing them with better new Holley pumps. On the port side I found that someone must have moved the smaller anti-syphon valve from the genny to the main draw for the port engine. This anti-syphon valve is nice since it comes apart but it has only 4 x 1/8" holes for the fuel to pass through which is just not enough for a 454 at full song. The other two had crap trapped in them and I replaced them with new. Still have to do the starboard side but that is because I ran out of time the other day after wasting hours trying to get the port engine to start after all my work, turned out the brand new Holley pump did not work, lesson learned first bench test than install.
 
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