44XS Carb jetting Walboro Carbs

[Yellowjacket]

I had the stock jets (.057 main, .098 vent jet) and it was running pretty rich. I changed them to the .055/.096 (2500 to 5000 ft jet set per the Mercury manual) and now it's a bit too lean (plugs are pretty white not tan). Obviously I don't want to slag this down so the question is... What jets are folks using the 44XS and can I mix and match the main and vent jets to get an "in-between" setting or are folk drilling jets out to get what they want. Not against doing that, I used to solder up and redrill the jets on my Weber carbs on road race engines but if I can mix the air and vent jets that might be more reliable.

Thanks,

[laddies]

The vent jet only effects mid range. Go back to stock jet sizes and lower the fuel level in the float bowl, if you are still using inlets with springs change them out with solid needles.

[Yellowjacket]

Laddies

Thanks for the response. I got rid of the "springy" needle valves a good while ago, and will double check the float levels. Right now the floats are set so that I really can't get any flow out of the carbs pumping it hard with the squeeze bulb so that should be pretty close to where they need to be. The carbs were rich with the stock jets but I think the float levels may have indeed been too high. Also have better tuner on it now so it should need more fuel. Will do what you suggest, thanks again.

[laddies]

We also ran our floats at 5/16 to keep the engines from blubbering especially in ruff water marathons, stock height is 1/4 so you might try this also.