Volvo 4.3gl spark issue

[West Islander]

Several weeks ago my boat unexpectedly stopped on the water as I was throttling back. I determined I wasn’t getting spark ( grounded a spark plug I pulled) and got towed to shore I trailered home And hooked it up to a trickle charger. The next day I checked the purple wire at the coil and had battery voltage (12.64). I hit the key and the boat fired right up ( I didn’t do anything other than hook it to a trickle charger... basically it fixed itself on the tow home).

I used the boat several. Other times and it ran great. Today I went out and it was running fine. I was idling and power drifting, occasionally bumping it from neutral into reverse. I moved the throttle and it died. I had my multi meter with me in case this happed So I could try diagnose ing the problem... with the key in the on position I had 12.6 volts at the purple wire feeding the coil, 12.5 volts at the pink wire going to the rear of the distributor. I checked the engine ground by placing the positive lead onto the positive terminal of the battery and the ground prob to the exhaust riser. It showed 12.5 volts..... when I tried placing a screw driver in the spark plug wire and grounding it seeing if I got a spark to jump there was nothing...... I don’t have a MOB tether on this boat... clearly something is associated with the throttle that kills it yet I’m still getting good voltage to the coil....what am I missing

 

[alldodge]

4.3 GL what??

 

[West Islander]

Volvo penta 4.3 GL A carb EST ignition

 

[alldodge]

Sounds like a bad connection, but could also be a distributor module or magnetic pickup

 

[West Islander]

I pulled the coil and ran the tests. All of which fell out of specs so I ordered a new coil.... I’m still going to test the other components. I can’t help but wonder why manipulating the throttle would cause an intermittent shut down

 

[alldodge]

Maybe the throttles have chaffed some of the wiring running by