Re: Outboard question but not antique

[Casey Lynn]

What a coincidence. An old dealer of mine called today to troubleshoot the engine below.
V4 Cross flow….mid 80s or higher.
Extremely high charge coil output at cranking speed and a failed pack. The pack that failed on his engine is a CDi pack and now has a swollen section in the pack. Cranking charge coil voltage was 280-300v at cranking. No shorts to ground and no opens.
Off the top of my head the output at cranking on that particular engine should be in the 180-200v range or higher and we typically see a bit over 300v at running speeds. I don’t know what the safe upper threshold for the capacitors in the packs is but it would seem to me that 400-500v would be excessive and this mechanic said that running voltages were pegging his meter as well. The meter is a known good meter.
He is installing a known good stator and should get back to me tomorrow or so and let me know what the new voltage is.

As a side note this engine came in to him a couple weeks ago with an extremely high idle. In troubleshooting it was found that the timing was almost exactly 30degrees advanced with no loose flywheel/key failure and the hub on the flywheel had not moved. A separate flywheel and timer base had been substituted with no change in idle timing. The only part that was not changed was the stator, mentioned above, with the high output.
Finally, the flywheel was indexed and installed minus the key at a 30degree retarded position, proper advance was checked, and he gave the engine back to the customer. Now, before some of you try and sound an alarm about that last procedure just remember that the key simply initially locates the flywheel. Once properly torqued it serves no purpose. There was no unlimited money supply to repair the engine and the mechanic had a ton of free time in it already. Will be interesting to see if the stator output change will affect the timing.