I was taking my boat out the other day, and much to my surprise, the engine wouldn't hold an idle. Oh well I thought, maybe I messed up the idle screw somehow. But then when I got to the open speed zone, I floored it, and barely achieved a plane after 30 seconds of flooring it. It usually takes about 5. The butterfly valve was opening all the way. Also the stream of "****" coming out the back was unusually weak. We just got done rebuilding the carb and replacing the gaskets, which made her run great for a month or so, but then this. Another thing that I found weird was when it hit a certain speed, it decided "oh yeah, I'm a 30 HP, not a 15," and off we went. Back at idle again, it was up to its tricks of needing to hold the throttle at about 1/3 just to keep it from dying. It is about as simple as an engine gets, as a 2 stroke modified for surf lifesaving. (meaning nothing remote, no electronics, pull start, can be flipped into water and nothing but a little elbow grease can make it live again)
