I have a 1979 Sea Ray Sundancer...

[Stan1]

I have a 1979 Sea Ray Sundancer with a 260 HP MerCruiser I/O. Love the boat and have owed it since 2014. Unfortunately I can't rely on the engine.  When I get up to 3000 rpm and continue to accelerate the engine bogs down and when I get into the harbor, it stalls and eventually won't restart.  I had to coast into my slip. (dangerous).  Next morning, it starts right up, but now I am afraid to take out to Lake Michigan. Hard to find a mechanic in this area. two month wait because of shortage of labor. Any ideas?

[Triclight]

1988 Sea Ray Seville. I have similar problem. I had the boat on the water yesterday. It's in great shape for an '88, anyways, starts and idles great, then I go full throttle to get her up on plane, and after 20-30 secs, she dies. Will start right up, but repeats again. I can idle around at 1200rpm all day though. Sure like to know if you can figure it out. My boat mech. thought it was the shifter cable, now he thinks its a fuel problem. I've also been told to look at the engine/shift interrupt switch.

[Sessenach]

Not sure if you got your problem fixed but I have a 1982 23 ft that did a similar problem I'd run it for a while shut it off and then I couldn't restart it we rebuilt carburetor we built rebuilt all the water system and everything and it eventually was the distributor had to be replaced and it runs like a top now

[Darrell24]

Could be carburetor, ignition, distributor, fuel supply. Is the engine been up graded ?

[Darrell24]

Go with a electronic distributor

[Darrell24]

MercCruiser 260

[Isaacson372]

Hi Stan, I have a completely refurbished 1979 SRV 240 hardtop. I had to re-power the boat last summer. I have started to noticed the same problem. I have traced it down to the carburetor. I replaced the filter in the carburetor where the fuel enters from the external fuel filter. There was the smallest amount of debris that was not allowing enough fuel to pass at higher RPM.