Re: powerpack issues
You should check it. There's been *several* plug wire issues over the last month on the forum that cause cylinders to drop out. You can also put an ohm meter on both ends and wiggle the plug wires and see if you have any open circuits. If your powerpack wires have insulation that is rough, those wires should be replaced. Guys have seen issues with powerpack wires on CD ignitions that ground out and I believe cause it to run slow or go into slow mode. I replaced wires on my 71 9.5 HP because one wire was cutting out intermittently and causes the spark to only jump 1/4 inch and was yellow. After new coils and nice 7 mm copper core plug wires, spark jumped 5/16 inch and was nice and blue. Sounds like you might want to go ahead and replace those plug wires anyway if one is taped - it's probably been a while and they take a lot of abuse as they have to twist with the magneto base. Lot of people overlook that when doing "major" tune up. They are a maintenance item and have caused a lot more trouble than you'd think. You can also check coils with ohm meter. Primary resistance between black and green wires should be 1.0 ohm and secondary resistance between green wire and plug wire stinger should be at least 70,000 ohms. However, that said, the old coils on my 9.5 HP were 77,000 and 80,000 ohms and the new OMC coils were 92,800 and 93,800. New coils with new wires produced blue spark while old coils and wires produced the best whitish-yellow spark on the bottom cylinder. Maybe new wires would have made a blue spark, but didn't check that with the old coils. Check it out with a spark tester too - it's real helpful. You should get at least 1/4" spark jump with points ignition, but it's nice to see 5/16". See Joe's post to make a spark tester at
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=213548&highlight=spark+tester.
