Over-heating Tigershark 1100 Li 1999

[jcjenk]

After renting a PWC for the first time recently, I decided I had to buy one. I bought a 1999 Tigershark 1100Li from a friend of a friend that said it worked fine. On my first trip out, the engine temp light came on after about 10 minutes of FAST riding. The engine lost most of its power and I barely made it back to the dock. I started the engine back up the next morning and ran it for about 5 seconds and it sounded fine - no noticable clanking noises. I took it to a shop and when he opened the seat and saw it was fuel injected, he refused to touch it.

What should I check to find out why it overheated? Did I damage the engine?

The tigersark didn't come with a manual so I don't even know where to begin.

Thanks in advance for your repsonses!

[Technical Support]

That is about the last ski in the world I would have bought - almost zero parts availability and support. You will need to find an Artic Cat dealer that is willing to work on it, and have them hook the dealer computer to it - about the only thing you can do at home is a compression check to see if you have damaged it.

[jcjenk]

How do I hook a garden hose to this thing so I can run it without going to the lake?

Is it possible that one of the water lines is clogged?

Thanks!

[dank]

You can get fittiongs to attach a hose to the left hull fitting and make sure to only have the water on when the engine is running. Turn the water off first before you turn the engine off. I can help you with this model since I rebuilt one from the hull up tis past winter. When it is running on the hose you should have water coming out all three outlets on the right side. If not there is obstruction or loose/melted hoses.

[jcjenk]

I hooked up the garden hose to the hole on the left side. I started up the shark and turned on the water. It seemed to idle a little slow - no tach so I don't know the RPM. The check engine light seemed to blink in rhythm with the RPM. I reved up the eninge a few times and it seemed to purr pretty nicely. The check engine light would go out as the RPM got going pretty good. Very little water came out of the outlets on the right side. I turned off the water and the engine and didn't see hardly any water on the ground. I started it back up and gave it a couple of good revs and a ton of water came out of the exhaust port (normal?).

I pulled off the intake hose in the back near the FICHT module and blew through it toward the engine. Lots of water came streaming out of the outlets on the right side. I had no trouble blowing through there so I don't believe the lines are clogged.

What are the next steps? What else could cause it to overheat? Why is the check engine light blinking at idle? Could the temp sensor be bad?

Thanks again!

[dank]

I have a 1100 LI supplement book on the Fict system and will check it for your symptom. If you feel the sensor is bad then unplug it from the wire harness and test again. The heads and pipe should not get real hot just warm on the hose.

[jcjenk]

Thanks for all the info so far. Here is the latest.

I took the ski to the lake today hoping that the first time it just had something stuck on the screen in the pump that I didn't know at the time to check. That doesn't appear to be the case though.

The ski started up immediately and I had to travel at no wake speed for about 3 minutes to get out to the lake. During this time, my brother verified that I had a steady running stream of water coming from the three outlets on the right side. This sounded like good news to me. Once out of the no wake zone, I took off. Once again, the ski was very fast. I had fun for about 10 minutes and the temp light came on.

I immediately turned off the motor and lifted the seat where I saw smoke in the hull. At first I thought I was in big trouble but then I found that the smoke came from one of the large plastic vent tubes that was laying on the exhaust tube that goes from the left side of the boat to the right in the back and it was melting to this metal exhaust tube.

The operator manual recommends cleaning the water filter but this appears to have been removed by the previous owner.

Now I don't know what could be causing it to run so hot.

Any ideas on what else to check?

[Technical Support]

How about trying the compression test as instructed...

[dank]

If the pipe is getting hot enough to melt a hose then it is overheating. Without the inline filter you may have restictions at any pipe fitting. You will have to remove each hose and test fro blockage.

[jcjenk]

Ok, I took the ski to the shop and paid $60 to have them look at it.

They said the compression was great. No real difference between cylinders and a pressure of 143. Do you agree this is right?

They also said that they could not get the ski to overheat. And to be able to duplicate the problem, they wanted to do a lake test which would be another $100.

Their only suggestion was that maybe the oil in the ski was the wrong kind? The oil in there is what it came with when I bought the ski so I have no idea.

I bought a gallon of the tigershark oil recommended and plan on changing it out. Any ideas on how to flush the old oil out? Any tricks I should know about?

My other thought is that maybe the spark plugs are the wrong kind. The ski has NGK plugs in it now and I know the previous owner replaced them just before selling the ski so they might not have driven the ski with the new plugs. My operator manual recommends a different brand (I think champion but I can't remember off the top of my head). Could the wrong spark plugs (or gap) cause the engine to run hot at WOT?

Any other thoughts? What else could be causing the ski to overheat?

Thanks for all the help so far!

[dank]

Tigershark sells DI oil for that ski but I have used thier exstreem oil with no problems. I don't think compression would cause it to overheat but the wrong plugs might. NGK is ther stock plug but sell for @ $15 each. Autolite makes a comparable plug for $4.50 each. Should be able to get them at NAPA.

If it is overheating how is the performance when running for the first couple of min? Have you checked the wear ring / impeller clearence?

Next pull the hose coming from the pump and put the ski in the water start it for a second and make sure a lot of water is going out the hose. Next remove each of the 3" long hoses that run from the exhaust manifold to the heads and verify each one in the same way. If you can't find any blockage then it may be internal to the engine or manifold and will have to come apart to clean.

OBTW: Bill said once to remove that built up gunk inside an engine use "CLR" cleaner. I have never used it but it may be worth a try before you diasem,ble the pipe.

[jcjenk]

Ok, I'll try again. I typed everything in here and then I added the image and it wiped out all my text so I will start over.

As you can see, I posted a picture of two of the three spark plugs. The other one looks identical to these two. Maybe they will give somebody a hint. If I had to describe them, I would say they are black and sutty, almost oily looking. They were gapped at .024-.025 which is a little smaller than the specs at .028-.031. I cleaned them and gapped them at .030. Don't know if this effects temperature at all? According the local tiger shark dealer, these are the right plugs, NGK PZFR6H, but I swear I remember the manual giving me a champion number - got to find that dang manual.

I'll have to check the water flow next time I get it to the lake but I don't think that is a problem because I get a good flow of water coming out of the three outlet ports on the right side of the boat. Could there be a blockage and still get water coming out there? I will try the CLR and see if the flow doesn't increase.

I bought a gallon of the "special tiger shark DI oil" ($30) and it looks exactly the same color as what is in the boat. I would hate to dump out all that good oil if it is the right kind.

The performance of the ski when first dropped in the water is fantastic. It accelerates very fast and tops out around 50-52 mph (according to speedometer on boat). I am not sure how to check the wear ring and impellar clearance.

It seems I could run the ski at idle all day long; it just overheats when I start using it?

Thanks again for all the help!

[Technical Support]

The compression should be alright. Those plugs do look sooty, but your dealer is the only one who could do anything about it, if it's abnormal for that model. The NGK plugs are the factory standard, not Champion. Some manuals give a cross refference if you can't get the NGK but don't bother.

[dank]

You are going to have to find out why it is going into limp mode. I have the conector and software to use my laptop to talk with the computer. It will store any codes and let you know what caused the problem. The plugs are correct and look normal for that engine.

[jcjenk]

How much is the connector and software? Is it even available for purchase? If I had that, I would need somebody to analyze the report right?