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98 GTX RFI Idle/Rev Intermittent low or running on one cylinder

lkeep77

New Member
OK I have 2 GTX RFI's that Im selling and i took them out this past Saturday to test ride them before potential buyers came to test ride. I have a 99 same model as well. The 99 ran good. The 98 seemed to run ok for a bit but top speed was slightly low. I figured that was due to ruff water. But after about 20 min of riding the ski kinda bogged down a little very slowly like over the course of 10 min it went from revving out fairly well but then finished at barely idling. I got it to the dock and pulled the plugs. PTO plug was wet and mag plug was dry. It seemed to be only running on 1 cylinder. Cleaned the plugs and cranked back up and it was a little better but not much. Limped it back to the trailer. Since then this is everything I have checked and done to resolve: Drained all the fuel completely sucking it out and using the pump to drain out the rest with a large hose slipped over the fuel line after disconnecting it from the fuel rail. Refilled fresh fuel. - Thought that was going to be the whole problem because the gas was really bad/old. Pulled fuel rail and cleaned out and made sure injectors were firing but connecting the fuel rail back up to fuel line with injectors pointing up so i could see. they both fired fine. Checked compression multiple times cold and hot - just under 180 on both with engine warm and wide open throttle (also closed throttle). Fuel Pressure about 55psi with pump just priming and with it running (very stable). Checked spark using the spark checker light thingys that i have read a bunch of people on the forum using. They both fire and I'm not certain that the pto cylinder is as bright as the mag cylinder but there doesn't seem to be any real science behind it. I pulled every connection and cleaned with deoxit and blew out with compressed air reseating multiple times. Also swapped coil with the other ski. Still having issues.

on the trailer it should idle high around 2000 - 2100 as I have set The TPS on both my ski's when i fist got them a couple years ago. I bought the CANDOO PRO. Both machines seemed to have been set on the trailer for 1400 rather than in the water so they would idle well at all until i calibrated tps. I connected my candoo and don't have any errors other than the crank sensor not being read due to the motor was off but I cranked it and ran in live mode and no errors present.

Here is what its doing now: Cranks up somewhat easy most of the time (all on trailer at this point). Idles around 800-1100 rpms when its bogging. and intermittent will kick up to correct idle and revs out fine and jumps back to bogging again. No real pattern to make it work correctly just rev it sometimes and it jumps back into what i consider normal mode and then few seconds it kicks back off into bogg mode. I know that sounds weird but like i said idle cuts in half when its not right and top rpm around 4500 and in normal mode it idles around 2000 and revs out to about the rev limiter. Hopefullly im not hurting anything doing that on the trailer. i make sure to crank it before connecting the water hose quick connector - hopefully thats correct. I have not pulled rave valves out as I didn't want to get myself stuck with out a gasket for something thats prob not the issue without advice at this point.

Let me add: Today I pulled the Rave valves off. They were moving by hand not sure if working 100% but i left the vac line off accidentally during troubleshooting and the ski didn't want to run hardly at all. What i noticed is both valves were very oily/sludgy with just a little bit of carbon buildup. Springs and orings and seals all seamed fine but the passage ways and the valve itself were def oily/sludgy. I have them in my ultrasonic cleaner now and will post how it runs after they are reinstalled. I do have the original oil lines and prob oil filter but no signs of any leaking and obviously its getting oil. I am using the amsoil multi spec oil - Im an amsoil dealer so it saves me money - its not the intimidator oil that I read I should be using but specs for TCW-3 and for API-TC which does seem a little weird. Amsoils site only pulls that up for my ski I think.

Any help would be much appreciated.

adding more info: cleaned rave valves -reinstalled- no improvement.
Its like a bad connection as it comes in and out but does anyone know the symptoms of a bad TPS??? It reads and flows through from 0 to about 79 when pushing the throttle slowly and no weird spots noticed using CADDOO PRO. But what if the 0 value changed or can the computer lose its 0? But sure seems more like a connections but i cant find the cable or wire so far that makes the change when shaking it. I have 1 more connection to check/clean that i missed previoiusly at the starter solenoid box connection. I thought I had a charging issue but I don't think I do.

Thats odd I know- I hooked my fluke up to the battery and got baseline voltage, cranked it up and it didn't change much at all so I Checked my other ski, It was doing the same thing! So went back to the problem ski, opened the solenoid box to find the red wire from the rectifier and checked there and it was reading about 13vdc and would raise a little when reving. Not much though.

Are there any known wiring harness issues that are common? Here is one other thing that Ive never worried about - the beeper wasnt working. But after I checked that voltage yesterday It beeped on me when I put the key back on to crank - out of nowhere. and it continued to do that. unfortunately it didn't resolve my issue but does lead me to beleive there could be a wiring issue somewhere.

Thanks for reading my dissertation - I just havn't received any response yet and im continuing to troubleshoot.

Lindsey
 
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