Made a dumb mistake past weekend and forgot to re-connect one of the engine water jacket hoses on my MC X-5 Direct Drive after unwinterizing it for a day of boarding. About 5 minutes after heading across the lake from the ramp, looked down and saw water coming up through the floor. Immediately, I remembered that I forgot to re-connect the hose, thus taking on massive water. So I turned off the engine, reconnected the hose, and then ran the bilge for 10 min to get all the water out. <BR> <BR>Problem is that at riding speed, the engine is running rough and doesn't appear to be firing on all 8 cylinders. Hard to maintain speed and the engine surges up and down. At low speed and at transporting speed (35 mph) engine doesn't miss a beat. So, is it possible my distributor got wet b/c there was water about half way up the side of the engine or could this be something else. <BR> <BR>Anyone that can offer up any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'm also going to change the spark plugs and run some fuel injection cleaner through the tank as both of these need to be done anyway. Thanks.

Spray the inside of the distributor with WD40 and it will displace any water that's in there. If that's the problem, this will definitely do the trick.

Is it backfireing? h20 in the distributor should cause it to backfire because the spark jumps to the wrong terminal. Easy to check though remove cap and spray a little wd-40 in the cap that shoul disapate the water. Then give it a shot.

ya beat me Dave!!

Guys...thanks for jumping in with the feedback. In 2 hours of riding, it did backfire once. But that was the only time and it was my last run, so I decided to call it a day after that. I'll try the WD-40 in the distributor trick and hopefully this will solve the trick. <BR> <BR>Thanks guys.

Even if water is only up to the bottom of the lowest pulley, the belt will act like a conveyor, and will sling water all over the engine. So yes, it is possible that wate in the distributor is the problem.

Also, remember when tuning, don't use automotive specific distributor caps, use marine caps as they come with a seal and will do a better job of keeping moisture and condensation out.

check your MAP sensor -- sounds stupid but....

check your MAP sensor -- sounds stupid but.... <BR> <BR>water in the dist cap is possible, but somewhat unlikely,,if that is the case--wd40 should do the trick --it would take quite a bit of water for that to happen....