I figured I'd post this info in case it can help someone. I've been using this 7.5 Honda for years as a kicker for fishing and it's always been flawless. I recently bought a 12' aluminum for small lakes while I'm living in Alberta and had it shipped out here. Anyway, I strapped it on the new yacht and it really seemed to dog bad, I noticed that it was smoking quite a bit and back firing through the carb a touch. The cam drive pulley was loose on the part below, the rivets had actually stretched and were messing up the timing, not that noticeable at the trolling speeds that I had been using it for. I used small stainless steel countersunk screws to allow the weights to travel freely and nylocks to fix the problem. Unfortunately the reference I found for the timing was for the points style ignition of the previous generation and I spent nearly a whole day going through the motor trying to figure out why it wasn't running right. The CDI ignition has two timing marks, the cam has a dimple on the pulley that aligns with a dimple on the block below it and the timing mark on the top dead center mark on the flywheel that aligns with the mark under the rear bolt of the pull cord assembly. Apparently the points style uses the fire mark. Needless to say, I have the cleanest carburetor known to man and spent a good portion of the day tapping out gaskets and being covered head to toe in ultra black trying to diagnose this problem. I hope this will help someone cut some time off their repairs.
