Hi Everyone, I know there have been plenty of threads on this typical issue that arises on our Mercury 240 EFI and the Optimax's but I wanted to identify what resolved my challenges with the surging issue.
Typical scenario where boat/engine would stumble at around 3500 rpm or 30 mph .. as we know things like the Throttle Position Sensor and Fuel Pumps are often the cause of this, in my case, I checked all of these things with meters etc and all were working as expected. Because a lot of these things are mtce type of things I went ahead and replaced the high pressure pump along with all of the fuel hoses, in addition to the stator and trigger assemblies. I still had the surging issue so I was getting down to the fuel injectors or possibly coils or power pack modules.
At this point, I decided to let the experts have a look at the boat and dropped it off at a High End Performance shop who primarily deal with the 40 or 50 foot go fast boats. Long story short it turned out to be the fuel injector filters that go on the end of the fuel injectors ... all 6 of the filters were badly clogged. The shop cleaned the filters and water tested the boat .. no more surging. I took the boat out today for the first time after the fuel injector filters were cleaned, the boat runs terrific now .. I am a long time boater whose previous boats were the go fast Checkmates but sold these as the kids lost interest. Now that they are older now the interest has returned so I bought this Challenger 2 years ago but more or less worked on it the entire summer last year trying to resolve the surging issue. Boat is in top notch shape hull wise and upholstery so spending a few dollars to sort out the surging issue has been worth it. A lot of hours to get to the injectors but in the end , worth every penny.
Just wanted to provide what resolved my issue with the surging .. these filters are about the size of the plastic cap on a Golf pencil but when clogged up over 20 plus years of not being cleaned .. caused havoc.
Take care everyone ...
Bruce
Typical scenario where boat/engine would stumble at around 3500 rpm or 30 mph .. as we know things like the Throttle Position Sensor and Fuel Pumps are often the cause of this, in my case, I checked all of these things with meters etc and all were working as expected. Because a lot of these things are mtce type of things I went ahead and replaced the high pressure pump along with all of the fuel hoses, in addition to the stator and trigger assemblies. I still had the surging issue so I was getting down to the fuel injectors or possibly coils or power pack modules.
At this point, I decided to let the experts have a look at the boat and dropped it off at a High End Performance shop who primarily deal with the 40 or 50 foot go fast boats. Long story short it turned out to be the fuel injector filters that go on the end of the fuel injectors ... all 6 of the filters were badly clogged. The shop cleaned the filters and water tested the boat .. no more surging. I took the boat out today for the first time after the fuel injector filters were cleaned, the boat runs terrific now .. I am a long time boater whose previous boats were the go fast Checkmates but sold these as the kids lost interest. Now that they are older now the interest has returned so I bought this Challenger 2 years ago but more or less worked on it the entire summer last year trying to resolve the surging issue. Boat is in top notch shape hull wise and upholstery so spending a few dollars to sort out the surging issue has been worth it. A lot of hours to get to the injectors but in the end , worth every penny.
Just wanted to provide what resolved my issue with the surging .. these filters are about the size of the plastic cap on a Golf pencil but when clogged up over 20 plus years of not being cleaned .. caused havoc.
Take care everyone ...
Bruce
