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New carb. is cold and has water?

bigsbetter

bigsbetter

Active member
I just ran my boat for the first time in the water since putting on a new Holley 850. It was doing good, except after a long run I went back to idle and the engine was spitt'n and sputter'n and popping and coughing. I tried revv'n it up and it was missing. Then it just cleared up and ran fine. I raised the hatch and saw there was water, or condensation all over the carb. I wiped it with my finger to make sure it wasn't fuel. It was water and the carb was very cold to the touch.???Is this normal? It was a warm day, and the boat had been runn'n for a while. Then later in the day after being parked on the sand bar for a few hours, I went to leave and it started right up, but when we went to take off, it was missing real bad, would get ove 1400rpm's. And then after about 5-6 tries it just cleared right up and ran 72 mph. Seemed like an ignition miss or water in the dist. cap. but the water on the carb has me thinking too.??
 
Air temp 80-82 water temp. was cool ??60 maybe? humidity was High. It's probably condensation from the air, but why? And does this have an effect on my engine running bad?
 
Maybe you have a water leak spraying at speed, flooding the carb area with lakewater. (maybe a wet distributor?)
 
is it lake water all over everything or condensation? condensation is a real possibility with no heat crossover in the intake to warm the carb. but look for a water leak just in case
 
I would say its condensation or the posibilty your floats hung with this crapy gas we get now. Are you running a marine dist. Or your plug wires might not be that good and with all the condesation they are arking off things I have seen this before.
 
Big Red said:
I would say its condensation or the posibilty your floats hung with this crapy gas we get now. Are you running a marine dist. Or your plug wires might not be that good and with all the condesation they are arking off things I have seen this before.
Click to expand...
That might be it. I had a boat that when you started it at night (with dew on the boat/motor) you could see arcing from the plug wires. Then I replaced them and all was good.
 
The condensation (as I'm calling it) was just on the carb. nothing else. It did seem like an ignition miss to me, but just ironic that it happened after I put this carb on. The distributor is marine, but I haven't checked or changed the cap/rotor/wires in the 4 years I've had the boat. I'll probably do that this week.
 
I have run real high octane before like 106 and it made the carb sweat bad. If its just on the carb alone I cant see that being a problem. A little bit of water down the carb will not hurt anything. I have run big carb mounted scoops for years on cars driving down the roads in the rain and it never hurt a thing. I put 106 in a dune buggy I had when I was selling it so you could not smell the gas fumes and it froze the intake up.

I can not see condesation on the carb causeing a problem unless it froze up. And if it did you would see frost on it.
 
The boat sat all winter with a pretty empty tank of fuel....(I know, most people say fill it up during winter, but I don't) I took it out 1 mounth ago with a different carb. and put about 35 gallons of 91 octane in it which made about a half tank. I ran it with no problems or issues. This time with the new carb. I added 15 gallons of 93 octane and now the gauge was reading almost 3/4. I agree on the water not hurting anything if it goes into the engine. I've poured a glass of water down carbs. before to clean carbon out. But I just never seen it on the outside.
 
I agree the condensation isn't an issue in this case. What it appears to be is loading up or your needles/seats are sticking. with the boat in the water floating normally run her for a minute or two and pull the site plugs and see where your fuel level is. (you can also install the clear view plugs avail at most auto part stores.) see where the fuel bowl level is on the side of the float bowls. It should be level at the bottom of the site plug and should not pour out the side of either bowl. if so, adjust your float levels. A silly question do you have the correct base gasket installed?

Addressing the fuel layup situation. In my earlier carreer we did reccomend filling the tank prior to storage to advert condensation in the tank. Decades went by with little to no problems either way. Now enter ethanol.
1. attracts water
2. fuel characteristics dimisish greatly after three months.

for these reasons I reccomend as little fuel in the tank as possible. I drain mine and cap off the fuel vent for extended periods of layup.
 
any luck w/ float levels adj. ? i use stabil over winter & when i fill up during summer . this has me thinkin though, i'm an o/b guy,but all my car stuff , on a stock motor runnin 104 octane i never had condensation ,only hotter engine & cyl. temps. clean burnt plugs on the lean side ! for what its worth , somethin simple your over lookin maybe ? what carb were you runnin before the 850 ? maybe its too much carb for your motor , or ignition ?
 
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