i'm a new member here, been lurking for about a year though. our first boat was a 1961 28' connie. we owned her for 13 years. currently we own a 38' hatteras which is powered by 427 chris crafts. great engine, although the person who designed the fresh water pump pully system should be covered with fire ants. i digress. i fire up the port engine on sunday night and it doesn't sound right, exhaust is louder than normal. it quiets down some in a few seconds, but still not quite right. exhaust water seems normal flow. i let them warm up and notice the port is running a touch warmer than normal, just a bit over 160 but steady. we get about 4 minutes out of the marina, engine drop drops from 1500 rpms to about 1000, sputters and quits. cranks, but won't restart. thinking back, i seem to remember fridays statup exhaust a little louder than normal also but it went up to cruising with no hesitation and ran at normal temps. it now backfires when cranking, and will not start. checked the fuel in the filter, looks good. carb getting fuel also. gen runs off the same tank and had no issues. electronic ign, came with the boat, not pertronix, don't remember the name offhand. new cap/rotor/plugs/timing in spring, about 10 hours. pulled the cap and the contacts were black, so i'm thinking electrical. swapped the cap and rotor and cranked, still backfires. pulled the plugs, gap is still good, slight carbon fouling on #8, all other are seem good. tonight i will take a helper so i can crank it and verfy i'm getting spark. i will probably swap the coils, and if that doesn't work the carbs. if it is the coil, does anyone have a part number for it? any other tricks i should try?