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It's a 1997 Evinrude 225 with the oil premixed with the gas. When first starting the engine, cold, pump it once, choke on the key and it fires in just a few cranks but after it fires it idles up and then after 5 seconds or so it idles back down and thats when the problems start. It will miss and instantly die. hit the key fires first time. Miss and die. I put throttle on it will cough miss once maybe catch the next cylinder and then miss and die. We play this little game until the engine is warm or i need to get going. Then it is less frequent but still persistent. If I can start it with the ideal up, it will sometimes smooth right out by getting it in gear and idleing up to about 1500rpm. If I'm coming in to dock, after being run for a while it won't idle. It will go right back to missing and dieing. Any ideas? It's annoying as hell and it sucks to be coming into a dock and it just quits. It seems to choke itself trying to put power on in reverse too. Sorry for the lenght but help is much appreciated.
Hey Socc its me again, sorry I didn't get back to you on the ? about how to eliminate your VRO, I have missplaced my manual. I see you are past that. I had the same problem you are having with my 96. Ended up being too low compresion on one cylinder. Compresion seperation was out tolerance and miss would always start occuring after couple of minutes at idle. Docking manuevers were a nightmare.
Brother I Feel Your Pain! I have the same motor so I will give you some ideas here of what I went thru ....
First things first... do you have a shop manual for the motor? You're going to need the shop manual for everything I am going to tell you about and if you don't want to buy one, did you KNOW that your local library HAS the manual there, in stock, on the shelf?!?! I did my ENTIRE tune up with the manual I got from the library and trust me, you are going to need the $40 bucks you are going to save from not buying the manual UNLESS, you like having the manual around and you go and buy one!
My motor did the same thing yours did when I first got my boat. I bought my boat used and when I took it out the first time, it did the same thing. I bought my boat WITHOUT taking it for a sea test, I just heard it run on ears in the guys driveway and since the motor RAN, I was happy with that and made the deal.
I am SURE someone is going to chime in with other ideas and tell me EVERYTHING I did wrong BUT, it SOUNDS like you MIGHT have carburetor problems and I had to rebuild my carbs because ALL my "low speed" jets were totally clogged with all KINDS of stuff (It actually looked like someone stuffed toothpicks into my low speed jets they were so clogged!) The carb rebuild kits are $18 dollars for EACH carb and since we have the same motor, you have to get 6 rebuild kits. By the way, my high speed jets were almost as bad but not as bad as my low speed jets.
My motor would start, and then die. I would start it and it would die, but run a little longer each time. When I could get it running, it would idle REALLY rough and then it would die, but each time it would get warmer and run a little longer. If I COULD get it into gear, it would rumble and shake and when I took it out of gear (ALWAYS when coming to the dock with a MILLION "onlookers” watching) it would die as soon as I pulled it out of gear. I eventually decided to take a look at the problem and that is when I found the carbs/jets were all clogged.
BEFORE I bought the carb kits, I did everything I could as far as the "fuel" went and did ALL this under the advice/guidance of my local Evinrude mechanic. I drained my tank, I put in a new fuel/water separator filter and I replaced my fuel line from the fuel/water separator including the squeeze bulb. I did the fuel line/squeeze bulb replacement BECAUSE the bulb was shot but as far as the fuel tank drain, unless you are 100% SURE your fuel is good, you should do this as well.
The next thing I did is something my mechanic told me to try BEFORE I got too far into it. Take 2 gallons of gas and mix oil into it so you get a 50/1 mix. Get a bottle of "Techron", NOT just ANY fuel treatment but Techron and you can get it at Walmart for $7 bucks. Pour the ENTIRE bottle of Techron into your 50/1 mix. Disconnect your fuel filter, which is located on the side of your motor (follow your fuel line into your motor to find it, it’s a white plastic thing) and squeeze ALL the gas out of your fuel line by squeezing the bulb. Your fuel filter comes apart and take it apart and clean it out. Put back together and reconnect it. Disconnect your fuel line before your squeeze bulb and put a short length of fuel line on the end of your squeeze bulb and put that into the 2 gallons of 50/1 and Techron fuel mix. Make sure the length of fuel hose can get all the way to the bottom of your 2 gallons of gas. Squeeze the bulb so you are pulling fuel from the 2 gallons and start your motor on its ears or in the water and let it burn thru the ENTIRE 2 gallons of gas in idle. It will take about 15 to 30 minutes. Doing this did WONDERS for my motor. If this solves your problems, Sweet! If not, Read on …..
Next thing you need to do is remove the "cowling" that covers the carbs on the front side of your motor. By doing this, you can see your carbs. You should have 6 "black plastic" carbs just like mine. On the LEFT side of each carb, as you are looking down the throats of your carbs, there are 2 brass things that have screwdriver slots in them. These are your jets. The lower one is your low speed jet, the upper one is your high speed jet. Turn your motor or get into your boat or do whatever you have to do so you can see down the throat of your carbs. Look straight into EACH of the jets and see if they are clogged. Mind you, there should be "BRIGHT" brass in color and if they are any other color, you have sludge, varnish or whatever in or on your jets and this may be your issue and this is bad because the Techron should have removed a lot of this, if not all of it. By the way, your "choke plates" should be BRIGHT brass or BRIGHT aluminum/steel in color and if they are dirty, you have the same problem here and if you DO have sludge, varnish or whatever on your choke plates, it MAY be stopping your choke plates from closing all the way and if your choke plates DON'T close all the way when your motor is trying to idle, you will be having the problems you are describing. Just another wrench I thought I would throw into the mix...!!!!
As far as your high and low speed jets go, you can unscrew them out, soak them in carb cleaner and put them back in and try that. I had to take a piece of trolling wire after I soaked the jets for like an hour and force the wire thru the hole to get some of the "toothpick" like pieces out of my jets. The manual, people on this board, EVERYONE is going to chastise me for pushing the wire thru my jets but my mechanic TOLD me to soak them for as long as it takes so the "whatever" in each jet hole was soft enough to get the wire to go thru. It took OVER an hour of soaking for one of the pieces to come loose so be patient. It worked and my motor idled fine so you can do this or buy new jets if yours are clogged, your decision here.
This may fix your problem, it may not but if you check this, you'll remove one factor from the equation.
One thing I MUST tell you is that you are SUPPOSED to use a "tool" for unscrewing your jets but you can use a regular screw driver but it HAS to be really thin "width" with a fatter "blade" and as soon as you see your jets and put a screw driver in them you will totally understand when I am saying here. If you have a grinder in your garage or have one you can use, it is best advised to grind one of your fatter blade screw drivers because it makes the job that much easier. Like I said, as soon as you see your jets, you will understand what I am talking about here.
There is another brass screw in the center of your carb on the upper face. It is for "lean or rich" fuel flow in your carbs and it is BEST NOT to mess with this screw. Leave it alone!
The next thing you might want to try is getting a can of "decarb" MADE for an outboard motor and it costs like $11 dollars. You run the motor at high idle and spray the entire can into each carb and then shut the motor down. You unscrew your plugs and spray some in each spark plug hole. You let it set for 15 minutes and then run the motor at high idle again and you won't believe all the crap that runs out of your motor after you do this! Then you replace the plugs with NEW spark plugs AFTER you do the decarb.
Cleaning the jets and doing a "decarb" helped my motor a LOT but still didn't stop it from idling really rough, especially when in gear. It would start and idle and "spit" while idling but it would not die anymore especially when coming to the dock.
Before I bought all the rebuild kits for the motor, I pulled every carb off my motor. JUST the carbs, NOT the "choke plates". Our carbs come with "rubber" gaskets that I was able to re-use but pulling each carb apart let me look into each and every carb and see what was going on inside the carbs.
After I removed the carbs and disassembled them, there were all kinds of sludge, deposits and varnish in each hole the high and low speed jets were in. There is a big brass screw on the front of the fuel bowl (NOT the upper lean/rich brass screw!) and when you screw it out, there is another metering jet in that hole. If you CAN unscrew that metering jet, get it out. I soaked all my carbs and jets and everything else as far as the carbs go in "Seafoam" ($13 bucks at any marine or auto parts store!) and then cleaned everything with an old toothbrush. I rinsed everything in clean gas and then dried everything off. I wiped off the old gaskets and reused them. My motor started and idled AND, went into gear and while the boat was on the trailer at the ramp, I could get it to almost full throttle before it started pushing my truck back up the ramp so I only took it to 3500 RPM's.
Another thing I WANT to STRESS to you is that you rinse your screwdrivers in gas and wipe them CLEAN, BEFORE you put the carbs back together otherwise, you are just putting crap right back into the carb/fuel system!
If this still doesn’t help, this is where the “tune up and synchronization” section of the manual comes in. They tell you to do everything in an order that CANNOT be altered or have any steps skipped and it starts with “motor compression check”, then you make sure your timing needle is set properly, your choke plates are all closed at the same time, your carbs are set to open when they are supposed to open, your linkage is set and does what it is supposed to do when it is supposed to, etc, etc, etc!
I did all this and my motor ran “fine”, but not “great”. I did all these things listed and after I rebuilt my carbs AGAIN, with NEW carb rebuild kits, I took it to my mechanic and he “fine tuned” the motor and NOW, it runs great!
You or people might ask didn’t you just take it to the mechanic right from the start?….. At my Evinrude dealership, “general diagnostic” of motor - $45 dollars, EACH carb costs $65 dollars to rebuild (6 carbs = $390 dollars) Techron fuel treatment ($65 dollars) Decarb of motor ($65 dollars) Tune-up (NONE of the other items I just mentioned are included in the tune up) $120 dollars which only included new plugs and fuel filter. That’s $685 dollars. I paid $143 dollars for all the items to do it myself and Auto Zone gives you a timing light and compression checker to use for free for 24 hours. …… I paid my mechanic $90 dollars to “fine tune” the motor. Plus I had LOTS of fun leaning all KINDS of new things about my motor!!! It really was worth it because I learned a lot about my motor and if this ever happens again, I’ll understand what’s going on.
Wow, nice informative post. I second the de-carb but recomend using the factory product that goes in at the cold start injection area. Their is a port that looks like a tire valve. This way the cleaner is distributed more evenly and to more internal parts of your carbs. Although I agree with Tony, make sure your compresion is within tolerance before you try to tune this motor.
Been fighting a pair of 175 Carburated Motors from mid-90's that a friend owns that also pre-mixes. Finally figured out it autoadvances spark in start mode (which is why it starts fine initially and dies after 5 seconds when it retards). Rebuilt carbs, no help. Finally figured out one of the low speed needles was actually broken off in the throttle body and remained fully closed. When you would rev it up, that cylinder would pick back up as the mid-speed jet kicked in. Drove us nuts for weeks. Once replaced pin (a $10 part), working great. Hope this helps.
__________________ "Soon to be gone, but never forgotten."
Thank you very much for the info. It fits my motor to a Capital T. Did you buy the carb rebuilds before or after all the cleaning. Shouldn't I just try cleaning everything you said to do after the buying carb rebuilds and if that doesn't work, then get the kits. I don't know what the kits include so I'm don't know, I'm just guessing.
__________________ 1998 Stratos 2100 CC w/ a 225 'Rude
You fellows are having what I refer to as 'Ethanolitis'. When I clean these gas fuel tank, I am removing what looks like oatmeal. Ethanol is one of the best cleaning solvents on the market today and it is removing the varnish from the inside of the tanks.
We need to exercise proper predictive maintanence, adding fuel threatments that are made for ethanol.
Yes, I have the Seloc manual as well. Actually, when I went to the library, I got both the Seloc and the Evinrude Shop Manual and I read thru both of them on everything mentioned before I started on the job just in case either manual had a better way to do something. One thing I noticed is the Evinrude shop manual tells you the "Evinrude/OMC Tool Part Number" you need to buy and the Seloc manual tells you the same part number but also give you "options" as in the "grinding of the screwdriver" I mentioned.
I did all the cleaning of the carbs BEFORE I bought the NEW carb rebuild kits. When I started the initial carb rebuild, I took the carbs apart in my garage on a Friday night and I THOUGHT all the gaskets were going to be "paper" or whatever that material they usually make gaskets out of and figured that on Saturday morning, I would go and buy all the rebuild kits. I also called on Wednesday of that week to MAKE SURE they had 6 kits for my carburators.
I did all this work on Friday night BEFORE I bought the kits for 2 reasons ..... Number 1, I figured that when I got into the job, I would find something else I would need OR, I would break something and on Saturday morning, I would only have to make one trip to get all the things I needed and broke!!!
Reason number 2 is, The kits I bought came with everything you need from gaskets to needles and you just give them your serial number and model number and they order those kits and you go and get them BUT, by taking my carbs apart, I took the EXACT gaskets I needed to the dealership and I opened the carbs kits there at the dealership and made absolutely sure the gaskets that came from MY carbs were the gaskets that were in the rebuild kits. I have had this problem before, both with my boat and my truck and I have learned to take the EXACT thing I am replacing to the store and make sure it is an exact match! I have found it saves me from making 2 trips to the store!
My dealership here on Merritt Island has about a 3 day waiting period from the time you order the parts to the time they arrive so I was actually surprised they had the kits in stock (my luck is usually NEVER that good!) but my mechanic told me my carbs are "common" to a lot of motors so he always has a lot of them in stock.
He also told me that he sells a lot of those carb kits because where I live, most EVERYONE keeps their boats on lifts behind their house (I live on the water by the way) and with the heat of the Florida sun beating down on everyones motors (If you don't have a covered boat house or any kind of cover on your boat) the heat inside the motor box makes the rubber gaskets deteriorate a little faster than if you didn't have the boat covered. He also told me that what I was doing was a good idea, but there was a great possibility that my old gaskets would "leak" if I didn't torque the screws just right or didn't torque them enough! Its all just a "patience" game when you are putting them back together with the old gaskets. I didn't get any leaks because I took my time when I put them back together.
Did you notice any fuel mileage improvements after this? Right now I'm getting roughly 1.45 mpg I think. What are you getting?
Its an Evinrude Ocean Pro 225 pushing my "grand behemoth" of a boat thru the water with 120 gallons of gas, let alone my fat ass and a cooler full of beer, I'm lucky I make it out and back on one tank of gas!!!
Seriously though, someone once told me that my motor, when properly tuned, burns (if I remember this correctly) 14.5 gallons per hour and when I did a check once, that was what it was getting. Getting it tuned helped immensely in other ways though as in it ran better, idled better, picked up better and didn't stall out at the dock and that is all I was really concerned about.
Ditto for me, my 225 purrs like a kitten on a hot tin roof, but I try not to worry about fuel consumption. On days I have to look around for fish fuggetaboutit.
Evinrude 225 rough idle/hard starting 
It's annoying as hell and it sucks to be coming into a dock and it just quits. 
It seems to choke itself trying to put power on in reverse too. Sorry for the lenght but help is much appreciated. 
