Re: Hard starting 6hp Evinrude
You choke it on cold starts only, right?
just chiming in here...regarding plugs.. I was under the impression that when you cross a plug (if store doesnt have it) it generally gets pretty darn close if not exact on ranges..
Am i incorrect on that??
Yes. No. Yes. Sorry, yes you are correct, no you aren't incorrect. The equivalent is the equivalent. Probably, under ideal conditions like you find in a modern automotive engine, with all kinds of fancy sensors and computers to vary the timing and mixture, optimizing every single combustion cyle (which I bet is why spark plugs last 100k miles nowadays), that little difference doesn't matter.
But a recreational outboard is a different animal. Two, maybe 3 circuits in the carburetor means *most* of the time, the mixture is suboptimal. It has to push water out of the way, and hold the boat up on plane, running 5000 RPM all the time, except when it's trolling around smoking up the place. Think of driving your truck around in high gear, pulling a load, uphill all the time. The propeller is probably not in the best of condition, and probably not exactly the right pitch, so it's never making just the right RPMs at any given throttle setting, so the combustion temps are never just right. They sit around for weeks or months (which is hard on machinery) then get dragged out, run hard and put up wet. I think, spark plugs get a little more important. That's my theory anyway.
My experience is, that NGKs wear the center electrode down and I mean fast. One set lasted me about six months, no performance issues - I just had to regap 'em & realized they'd worn down too much. I run champions for three years, I inspect 'em 2x a year, replace when the center electrode starts to round off on top. I don't have to gap 'em every time. Last time I replaced 'em still in good condition, for no apparent reason.
And I hear Mercury owners trash-talking champions cause they foul like crazy. In a Mercury, which was designed around NGK.
So, I think, most of the time, the brand of plug won't prevent it running, maybe not even present a noticeable performance problem...it's just generally good practice to put champs in your johnnyrude. Unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise, of course.
[disclaimer -- don't mean to sound like a "know-it-all", I'm no expert on spark plugs, just sharing what I've learned over the years -- if I'm wrong, somebody needs to jump in and correct me. thx]
