Will not stay running. Help Please!

[007Grizzly]

Im new to the forum. Thanks for any help you guys can be. I have a 2000 GTX RFI. Purchased 2nd hand about 3 months back with 94 hours. Ski has been running good untill about 2 weeks ago. I took it out with my son and the battery was weak and would not start at the trailer. Did not have much time and not knowing any better hooked a battery jumper up to the battery and tried to start. After several tries the jumper finally gave it enough power to start, the jumper was weak also. Ran the ski for about an hour with no problems as usuall. Turned the ski off for a few hours to hang out at the water park. Weather starts to look bad so got to ski, started up fine, and headed back in. The ski starts to feel a little sluggish after just a few min. The more I rode the worse it got to the point it was just barely running, 4-6 mph. Thought the ski was going to quit any min. 1.5 hours later and one bad storm me and my son made it back (scary ride in rain, wind, and lightning). In a few days I check compression good and spark good. Put in a new set of plugs, take to lake, and run. Ski runs perfect for about 5-10 min and gets a new problem. Ski just quits. Try to start and after turning over for 15-20 sec. fires back up. Give it a little gas and runs rough dies again. Let set for a few, starts up, idles rough, but stays running give some gas for a few sec and quits again. Ski gets me back to trailer but continues with same problem. A few days later put another set of plugs in it to make sure its not them and a brand new battery and back to water. Same thing runs good for a few min then starts running bad and quits. I am thinking something is getting hot to cause this becaus it runs good till it warms up good. Before runing in lake after installing new battery and plugs I hooked up a volt meter to battery and started on hose for about 10 min and meter read 13 + volts. The rectifier does get really warm to the point you can just stand to keep your hand on it, not sure if this is usual. Sorry for such a long post but was wanting to give all the details. Thanks for any help.

 

[seadoolover]

Rave valves..

Hi and welcome to the forum. Hope i can help as i haved owned 3 of these skis previously. Firstly, be careful when jump starting the ski... excess current can fry your MPEM and other electrical components and burn out wiring. I would only do this in an emergency situation where i can;t charge the battery with a charger. Check your fuses... and then the main wire from your negative terminal to your ground.. make sure it is clean and nice and tight, check it with a multimeter as well as the outside wire coating may look good but the wire inside may be broken. The rectifier should get fairly HOT when charging so that;s normal. You installed a new battery so did this overcome your starting problems? Ski is running rough.. cuts out.... i would be cleaning the RAVE Valves as they allow the valves to open and close at different RPM's and are a VITAL part of your ski's performance... they get carbon build up and need cleaning once every 12 months is the norm. Also check your RAVE valve hoses... these are the small black hoses that run from the crancase to your RAVE valves and also from your solenoid to the outer atmosphere and back into your RAVE valves... these may have a blockage so check carefully. You.ve installed new plugs so that eliminates that as being a problem... Do you get the 2 beeps when attaching your lanyard to your starting post? Check for this as anything other than 2 beeps means you may have a problem. Are there any flashing numbers on you digital gauge? If so you may need a technician with he B.U.D.S. software to attach to your MPEM to diagnoze a fault with your ski. Ten minutes is far too long to be running your ski out of the water... any more than a couple of minutes and your jet pump bearings can overheat as they get cooled by being submerged in the water... with ski running at around 5000rpm voltage should be between 14 and 14.5 volts charge. Check all of these things first and see how you go. Then we'll move on...

 

[007Grizzly]

Thanks for reply. Did not know about running out of water would afect the bearings, hope I did not do any damage there. Thought as long as the water was on it from the hose I was good. Ski turns over really well with the new battery. After it warms up, 5min or so, it will just shut off. It will always start back up but give it any gas much and it dies back out. It seems the longer it sets the better it will start up and run for a few sec. Did not do this at all to start with after I jumped it, just started after I changed the plugs, Thought it could have been a bad set of plugs so changed them again. It seems electrical. I have a friends 1999 ski (1 year older same ski) that I have access for swaping parts out, if the parts are the same. Checked all battery cables and connections to be good. Thanks again for any help. Going to try and clean Rave valves today. I also get two quick beeps when I connect the kill switch.

 

[seadoolover]

Okay.. did you try putting the old plugs back in... the set that were in there when it was running well? Are new pugs same as old? Might seem a funny question but you'd be amazed how many people install wrong type of plugs. Also .. you may need to change your fuel to eliminate that as being a problem also... try this...disconnect the fuel hose from the injector rail and crank the ski with spark plugs leads off plugs and onto the grounding posts. Fuel should GUSH out of that hose so get a clear bottle and put the hose in there and crank until bottle is almost full.. should only be 4 or 5 cranks... check the fuel in he bottle for water or excess dirt... you may have got a bad batch of fuel.

 

[007Grizzly]

Plugs are the same as old ones and then tried another new set in champion that cross over. Checked the fuel like you said for water and trash. This was one of the first things I tried.