My boat is 6 years old now and we have been running at least 1000lbs of ballast for 5 years of those. Over the past year or so the boat seems to be a lot louder than it used to be. Is this something that is to be expected the older the engine gets? The boat only has about 450 hours on it. <BR> <BR>Currently i'm running about 2000lbs of ballast.

Check your impeller. When there is less water in the exhause it gets louder, a new impeller might be in the works. Is steam coming from the exhaust?

I am willing to bet the only direct attribute is poor gas mileage as you need more energy to get the boat to speed. But you've got an MC so it doesn't have to work too hard. <BR> <BR>I'll make a couple of assumptions. Your prop can succumb to pitting and allow air bubbles to gather and cause some cavitation; especially if your local body of water has sediment, or... you run into things. <BR> <BR>Of course the PS 190 has ride that is, well, less than smooth and things could come loose. It could be a missaligned drive-shaft. Loose engine mount (really bad). etc... Where is the noise coming from? <BR>

Well tonight the engine wouldn't crank over at all, but the starter was spinning when you turned the key. <BR> <BR>I guess I'll find out soon enough whether or not it's just the starter that is broken. I really hope that's all it is.

you better hope you didnt overheat severely and possibly seize the engine? <BR>Loud exhaust is the product of less water in the exhaust and therefore less muffling... when is the last time you checked/replaced the impeller... if its never it should be done once ever 100 hours or so...

Is steam from the exhausts a sign that the impellor needs replacing. Mine has always been steamy, not excessive but noticeable. <BR> <BR>I might replace the impellor then as it was last done 120 hrs ago.

The impeller was last checked in June. Also if the engine seized wouldn't that happen while it was running? The engine was running fine on friday night then on saturday night it just wouldn't crank.

A couple of weeks ago the engine was missing quite badly due to what I think was some old marine gas (93 octane). Then when the tank was a quarter full I filled it up with 87 and the missing has pretty much stopped. <BR> <BR>It was only missing while accelerating, any ideas? Was this just the gas or something more serious? It is the chevy 305 engine btw, mastercraft sportstar 19. <BR> <BR>If it is just the starter I could probably replace that myself, it seems pretty easy to get access to. Can you give me some ideas on what I should be checking in the engine?

engine missing- one time i put the spark plug wires back on in the wrong order after doing the seasonal tune up (changing oil, filter, impeller, gapping plugs...) and it ran really funky. my friends who i had out at the time where mechanically savvy and thought it was bad gas. so i dunno if you have done anything with the plug wires lately, just a thought. good luck. MC pride baby!

Kevin did your boat miss while running at a constant speed? My boat only misses while getting on plane, bad fuel pump maybe?

Pro mechanics can correct me if im wrong but i think if yout impellar was bad you could have burned your valve seats causing the missing engine while accelerating

oh, its all been fixed for a while and all is well. as soon as i started it up, it wasn't running smoothly, same for accerlerating. we brought it to the mechanic and everything was fixed easily. haha, just a dumb mistake.