I have a 79 Johnson 55hp electric start. Bought the boat from a friend after it sat for a long time. Unfortunately he had bought it and done a lot of work to it but could never get it running right. Once I bought it I found the problem to be missing plugs in the carb so the engine runs pretty good now. I’ve ran it for a duck season and summer fishing season. Carbs are rebuilt, floats adjusted, I installed all new jets because PO had drilled them out to try to make it run... compression is 112 and 116. I’ve always had to keep the idle timing higher than the fsm calls for. Fsm calls for pickup timing of 3 degrees but when I set it there and idle in gear on the lake my idle is only around 500rpm. From what I’ve read it should be around 750. I’ve done full link and sync and also removed timer base and cleaned old grease and re-lubricated. If idle speed is controlled by timing and my timing is set correctly, why is my idle speed lower than it should be and how can I adjust it?
