Working on a friends boat with a mercury 175 blackmax serial 6619236(84 motor I think) that wouldnt run past idle. Found the stator to be bad. Now I looked over everything else on the motor and the red wire coming out of the idle stabilizer box is corrorded. Ive read most people remove them. They say when you do you should reset the timing. Well I tried removing all the plugs and leaving them hooked up to the wires then tied wire around them all, tied them together and grounded them. When I tried to crank it I get an intermittent signal to my timing light. Could this be the battery voltage? Even when it does spark I cant tell whats its reading. Does the stabilizer even do anything besides control idle on this particular motor? Some say it controls WOT timing some say its doesnt. If it doesnt Ill just adjust idle timing by ear like I do all motors. WOT obviously cant be done that way.
