03 200hp yamaha loosing fuel preshure... please help

[Mrbonafide]

I have a 2003 200hp Yamaha efi saltwater series gen 2 that I cannot track down this ghost problem. let me start out by saying I am not a mechanic on boats but I have rebuilt a truck motor before so I am mechanically minded. I'm sorry if this might be long but it has been driving me insane. I bought a 22ft biddison with this motor on it and have been very pleased with it even now. we spearfish so sometimes I will put 150ml on the motor in one trip. when I got the boat I had my mechanic go through and do all the maintenance on it o2 sensor, lower unit, filters and so on. put about 75hr on the boat before the first problem started about a month ago. we where on are way in after a trip and we had an 1/8 of a tank of gas a storm brewed up it would come off of a wave and the bow would surge forward and I noticed every now and then it felt like the motor would stall but then pick right back up. I thought that maybe I had some trash in the bottom of the tank that was blocking the flow. we made it in and I went to work trying to track down the problem. since then I have replaced the fuel pickup put a anti siphon valve at the tank new ethanol fuel line from tank all the way to the fuel filter on the motor. new water separator and housing. new priming bulb, fuel filter on the motor checked anti siphon valve on motor that was good, replaced both low pressure fuel pumps with gaskets and vst filter. high pressure fuel pump is good it turns on and runs fine. after all that I made a trip two weeks ago after changing the vst filter and the boat ran great not a hiccup after 162ml. made a trip last week and started doing it agene once we where 60ml off shore. I primed the bulb up and it ran fine for the rest of the day until we started heading in. now the things that are interesting is that it only happens when the boat comes off a wave and bow smacks in the water the motor will conk out and then pick right back up 2sec later. it slowly gets worse and worse. I can prolong it by turning the motor of and turning the key in the on position about 6 times letting the high pressure fuel pump prim and I can run about 4-5 ml and then have to do it agene that will work about 5 times and then it only starts to last every 1-2 ml at that point I cant throttle up more than 3400rpm or it starts doing it agene like its starving for fuel. the only thing that's left that I know of is the fuel pressure regulator and im not sold that, that's it. im going to hook up a fuel pressure gauge to the top of the vst to see what type of pressure im getting. any help would be appreciated I don't know where to go next .

[Mrbonafide]

Does anybody recall a similar situation and they had heard about any direction would help thanks

[rodbolt17]

its actually fairly simple.
either you have trash floating about in the tank, or more lokly trash floating about in the VST.

[Mrbonafide]

Whenever I change the VST filter I cleaned the entire tank out make sure it was free of any debris and I check my fuel tank after I pulled the float out and never so any debris in it it happens whether the fuel tank is full or low from the way it cuts out and then cuts right back in it's almost like wherever the fuel was being pumped into the injectors once the boat surges forward it sucks up air and then picks back up the motor doesn't ever bogged down it literally totally cut out as if you pulled the safety lanyard off and then put it back on but I checked all the wires underneath there and everything was tight I just can't seem to figure it out and every Yamaha Machanic I'll talk to all seem to think it was either the VST filter or the low-pressure fuel pumps but whenever it cuts out and I feel the priming bulb it's hard so I know there's fuel getting to the low pressure fuel pump the fuel filter on the side of the motor that sits in the clear housing is totally full of fuel I don't know if I can pull the high-pressure fuel pump out and clean it normally one high-pressure pumps go bad when they stop working they totally stopped working

[Mrbonafide]

Also on the last trip when the motor started cutting out I thought maybe it might be the fuel filter that's on the side of the motor maybe it was leaking around the housing so I bypassed it and ran the line straight to the check valve before it goes into the low-pressure fuel pumps thought that maybe it HitFix it but to no avail 5 miles later it started doing it again it doesn't seem to do it when the boat is idling I can have the rpm's at 2000 and be able to drive just fine without it cutting out it's only when a higher flow of fuel is required to be pumped that it starts to cut out any insights would be greatly appreciated

[Mrbonafide]

So today I hooked up a fuel pressure gauge to the motor as well as a vacuum gauge I started the motor and let it idle the pressure would get up to exactly 38 psi as I applied vacuum to the fuel pressure regulator the percentage of PSI that I vacuumed that amount would drop on the fuel pressure gauge so from my understanding everything there is correct after reading all the posts made on the Yamaha EF eyes robot 17 states that the low-pressure fuel pumps below 1200 RPMs or cycle 10 seconds on 20 seconds off as he stated in a previous tread you can watch the fuel bowl on the side of the motor empty down halfway of gas then refill when the low-pressure fuel pumps are turned on after leading the motor idle the fuel will drop to halfway on the fuel filter bowl but I never see it refill the only time I see fuel push back into it is whenever I squeeze the priming bulb is this the problem that I have talk to the Yamaha parts place that I got the low-pressure fuel pumps because there are only three weeks old and he said to remove them from the bloc leave all the fuel lines hooked up prime the bulb as long as no gas comes out of the hole in the back then they are good is this correct or can they be malfunctioning somehow