Need opinions on what's wrong

[Waternut]

A little background...My head pipe bolts backed out last weekend just enough to ruin the gasket. I put on a new gasket with some copper gasket goop to seal the marks that were left from the metal core and retorqued everything. While I was in there, I squirted everything down with purple power because the engine bay was a mess from the pipe being loose.

I went out to ride today and everything seemed normal for a couple minutes. Then it started feeling like either the prop was cavitating or the single channel total loss ignition was bouncing off the rev limiter. Both were only noticeable when quickly going to full throttle. If I stay below 1/2-3/4 throttle everything is normal, the ski still has loads of power and plenty of bottom end snap. If I were to just try to get up to speed normally, it's still fine but a quick yank of the throttle makes it nutty.

The prop and stator vanes look good and I tightened my electrical connections which were slightly loose. Fuel tank isn't leaking and I can't find any leaks in the fuel lines. My only thoughts are the purple power ate something it shouldn't have, the total loss brain is going out, the total loss flywheel or stator plate are loose, or the pump shoe came loose. I think most are a long shot though.

 

[Waternut]

bump...

 

[McDog]

The kawi or the SJ?

 

[Waternut]

The SJ is giving me the problems this time.

 

[Cliff]

try rinsing your hull out one more time. may have some purple power left in there bubbling up. ive had similar problems like that after a good cleaning.

 

[Waternut]

Well I know the hull doesn't have anything bubbling up because I even checked it when I first noticed the issue but it's had tons of water through it.

I checked the timing, flywheel, and stator plate and those look good. The cylinder and pistons look good but the engine does appear to be running a bit rich based on piston wash which almost non-existent. Maybe when I rinsed the engine initially, the carb sucked up some water. I'll look into the carb in a bit. I'll grease up the midshaft too once I get some more grease.

 

[Cliff]

just an easy simple idea. with the luck we have lately, we have learned to check the piddly stuff first. we have totally rebuilt a ski including changing the complete electrical system over a xmw waterbox that broke and was bought new over the winter.

 

[Waternut]

just an easy simple idea. with the luck we have lately, we have learned to check the piddly stuff first. we have totally rebuilt a ski including changing the complete electrical system over a xmw waterbox that broke and was bought new over the winter.

Oh I agree completely. I didn't mean to say it wasn't a good idea.

 

[Waternut]

Ok I've checked the carb, the pipe to manifold gasket, and the timing. Everything looks good. Everything runs good for about 2-3 minutes and then it goes from bad to worse. Today the pipe and head were incredibly hot while the cylinder was cool. Both pissers were flowing good. The engine won't idle by itself anymore and the last time it died right in front of my dock, it wouldn't start back up. However, it did backfire twice though so just in case...I'm going to pull the ski out of the water and yank the flywheel. If anyone has any other thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

 

[munki63]

Check your compression, I had the exact problem and I had 25 psi diffrence so i bored out 1 mm new pistions/rings problem fixed

 

[Waternut]

Check your compression, I had the exact problem and I had 25 psi diffrence so i bored out 1 mm new pistions/rings problem fixed

Yeah I was planning to do that but then I realized I have to get my tester back from a buddy. Doh!

 

[Waternut]

Well I figured out the problem... All the spacers I had to use to get the air gap right basically stripped the holes in the pickup. So I've bonded the pickup to the backing plate with 5200 and added the spacers between the backing plate and stator plate. Hopefully it didn't ruin the pickup.