Ok guys I've been messing with my 1987 140 evinrude motor for the past week. The problem I'm having is planing off, it just doesn't have the power. Other then the loss of power the motor runs great at idle speed and I can run it at WOT but only at 3000 RPMs. Carbs were cleaned last year and only driveway tested, all fuel lines have been cleaned out and swapped fuel pumps with a old one with little change. A buddy suggested swapping out the power pack but I'd want to find a way to test that before dropping the money on a hunch. Any ideas?

Check fire ,check plug wires, had one power pac was double firing, you can send to CDI and for 50 r 60 bucks check all you ing.

Have been seeing lots of fuel related problems. Looked up last Monday and had 5 customer boats, that would die when put in gear. Check and clean the plug connections of the power packs and their grounds.

Update, I have a cheap power pack comming in from eBay to see if performance changes any and I pulled all 4 carbs last night to clean and inspect, I found a crack in the jet gasket! Surely this can't be the big issue but will need to be replaced. I work at a gasket company so I went ahead and made a handful of new gaskets this morning and will swap them out to see what difference it will make. Hopping power pack makes it in by this weekend

Please update this situation. I'm having basically the same issues.

I was having same issue a few years back and checked for fire and found the starboard bank of plugs had NO FIRE. I changed the power pack for that side and all was good!

Just had a friend tell me he was having the die when put in gear problem this past Thursday on a 90 Yamaha. He opened the emergency switch on front of his motor (small "RED")and it cleared up the problem. Returned switch to normal operation setting and all is well now.

Lone star, I swapped the power pack with a used one and it fixed my problem.

i'm currently having the same problem with my 1987 XP 150hp Evinrude. Did carb work then fuel pumps were replaced. Still did it. I remembered years back when it did the same similar thing. Ended up being the Stator. My mechanic took a good look at the Stator and said it was leaking. He's putting a new one on and i Guess we will see ?? BTW - We ran a direct fuel line from another tank to eliminate the fuel issue !! Happiest Day of a mans life is when He buys his boat then sells it !! Rio