1979 Evinrude 175 hp will not run at operating temp poor acceleration in gear

[TYGR-BASS]

Hello Boaters,
I have a 1979 175 hp Evinrude on a boat that i recently purchased... Rebuilt lower unit and replaced many fuel lines that were leaking after purchase.. First time i put the boat in the lake the engine turned over with idle.. fair acceleration in neutral when put into gear there is not even enough power to get out of the hole. Reaching operating temperature the boat will no longer idle or turn over unless choke is manually closed.. ..... I have purchased the manual and have checked all the specs for the choke and throttle linkage as well as idle adjustment all seems well along with the timing.. any help on a starting point with this problem would be greatly appreciated ( also have replaced one coil pack and fuel filter as well)
** before purchase boat had been sitting for awhile it has fresh gas and proper mixture
** fair amount of white spoke at start up will clear as engine is reaching operating temp..
THANK YOU FOR ANY FEEDBACK

[Haffiman]

And the compression readings are?
Did you rebuild the carbs before starting?? ('Had been sitting for a while')

[emdsapmgr]

Ignition comments: Those engines will seem to idle fine in neutral, even though they may be running on only 3 cylinders. It's a different matter when you shift it into gear. That's when you need all 6 firing properly. Old ignition components tend to fail once the engine heats up to normal operating temps. You can easily check for spark yourself. While the engine is running, put an inductive timing light on each spark plug wire. The flashes from the light will tell you a lot about the quality of spark. (misfires, no fire, weak firing, etc.) Once you know what is going on, you can swap various ignition components to see if they make a difference. Such as the spark plug coils or the two identical power packs. Fuel comments: once you determine what is going on with the spark, you may need to get into the fuel system. If the engine was stored for a long time with fuel in the carbs, it may have dried up and the residual gelatin could be restricting fuel flow inside the carbs. Only way to cure that is to completely disassemble all 3 and clean out the passages with a Gumout type product (one which will dissolve dried fuel.) Those engines normally smoke a lot on startup. Also, your 1979 model is a little harder to start when cold, since only 2 of the 3 carbs have choke plates. I was never happy with the way my 79 started.