Engine noise and hesitation

[LV1]

2007 OUTBACK w/ fuel injected Indmar 325

To start, I would like to apologize ahead of time for using simplistic, layman’s terms to describe this – I am not a gear head!

The last week of June we ran her quite a bit, every day, with no problems. At the end of the week, I pulled her out, filled up with mid-grade Shell (almost empty) and parked her in the garage. Fourth of July morning, dropped in, cranked it right up and immediately heard a strange, faint squealing sound from under the engine cover. It was a constant squeal/grind/squeak, like you would hear from a loose belt in a car, but in a morse code pattern – random dots and dashes, continual. I opened the cover and pinpointed it at the rear, port side corner of the engine. I closed the cover, powered up to head to tie up and started experiencing hesitation, not a sputter or anything, but an immediate drop in power, followed by immediate acceleration. This continued, through the whole rpm spectrum, other than idling.

At the end of the day, pulled her out, went home. I hooked up water at home, ran her and still heard the sound and still experienced the lurching. I changed the fuel filter and tried again, with the same result – noise and lurching.

I don’t know if the two are related – Fuel pump? Bad gas? Should I try Stabil next?
Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions are truly appreciated!

Thanks!
Marty

[mmandley]

Pretty late to this tread but im a firm believer that if it works day 1 and day two is right around the corner and it doesn't work, then what changed from day 1 to day 2?

Id have to expect bad fuel as im not a fan of Shell. Even if it doesn't normally happen with there gas if you got to the bottom of there tank when you filled you will get there water in the tank as fuel is lighter then water.

Ive had water in my fuel and it does the exact same thing, 1 sec its power the next its not.

It was in my car not my boat though.

[LV1]

The noise was the fuel pump and corresponded to a drop in fuel pressure when checked. Replaced the fuel pump and all is good again, but the cause of its failure is still unknown. The fuel pump was "one of the new types" and was the first the local Moomba bunch had seen fail. They did say, this season, calls about fuel related issues have gone from a few a week to a few a day…
Thanks for the reply,
Marty

[LV1]

Update - Dropped in yesterday and the problem began again, but at 2750rpm's and higher and no noise. The Moomba dealer got her in and started troubleshooting from the fuel fill, back. They discovered a kink in the fuel line, after the fuel filter, going to the fuel pump. It was actually caused by the fuel tank, pushing on the line, pinching it. How it got that way, they had no guesses, but fixed it perfect. A bunch of hours later, she's running great...

Marty

[mmandley]

Awesome great to hear its fixed man. Thanks for the update.