Ford 351 tech questions... HELP!

1989 MasterCraft ProStar 190 w/ Indmar Ford 351.

I bought the boat with 300 original engine hours. Checked compression before buying and they were all around 135psi.

Since then I've changed plugs, switched to magnetic pickup, cap, rotor, coil, both fuel filters, rebuilt carb (then replaced it due to cracked bowls and bad metering block), changed oil twice and tranny fluid once.

It now has about 390 hours on it, and last weekend after riding for about three hours, we were on our way back to the dock, running about 3000rpm, and I lost power (felt like I hit a sand bar). My first reaction is always to turn the key off. After checking depth, I tried to start the boat back up and it would not start.

It took a lot of gas to get it started and we noticed a very small amount of white smoke out the exhaust. It would not idle, or run below 1200 rpm. I was able to get us back to the dock (another 1/4mile or so) and turned the boat off.

Waited about 10 minutes for my trailer and started it back up again, same thing, still a small amount, but more white smoke, and we noticed a small amount of oil slick behind the boat as well.

I just pulled the plugs today and they look like this (check pics below):

Any ideas? I have no idea where to even start. My compression gauge only fits on two of the spark plug holes because the exhaust manifolds are in the way, but the two that I checked were both at 135psi.

Help!!

-gvb

(Message edited by gvb on November 15, 2003)