Hi, have a 1983 80 hp merc 4 cyl. I'm fairly new to 2 strokes but have years of mechanical experience, Replaced bad piston and rings in #4 because of low compression, 90 lbs.. Now have 130 pounds across the board. replaced all the gaskets, including the exhaust side and rebuilt the fuel pump. the reed valves looked ok, none bent or broken. rebuilt the complete ignition system including stator, trigger, all coils, rectifier and control box due to various readings with ohm meter or corroded wires. set the pointer with a dial indicator at .464 before tdc. set pickup timing per Seloc. would start and idle but would stall in gear. would not even accelerate. tried 2 sets of carbs which are both spotless inside and out. float levels are on the money. Finally got it to run in gear by advancing pickup timing by ear but I had to really richen up the carb screws out in the water to get full throttle. Now it screams full throttle but it runs a little rough and smokey at low speeds. when I start it hot or cold, I have to push the trans bypass to accelerate it until it clears or it won't idle. By the way, I forgot to mention it has new plugs and wires however the plugs look wetter to me than they should. since the rebuild, I seem to have alot of water shooting from the upper exhaust ports which I don't remember seeing before. I'm pretty sure all of the gaskets went in right. I could be wrong. any ideas?
