OOOHHHHH THE GREMLINS of an 11 year old boat!! Good news, it jumped up on plane every time this outing. Bad news, 4900 RPM was all I got and 43 mph. So, what I noticed is that at idle it was rough, wanting to die and had to keep a little pressure on the hot foot and maintain 800-1000 RPM in order for it to not idle roughly. I checked the throttle cable before I went out this time and made sure idle screw was touch and WOT screw was touching. Also the seals on the screws are still intact and look like they are still set to factory. Did some browsing around on here and found that mercury optimax in this generation had some bad coils. Pretty sure someone else mentioned this earlier on in this thread as well. Since this boat is new to me, it felt better than last time but I know a 100 rpm increase with 4 pitch sizes smaller is not right. Well the symptoms I read about in the earlier thread was 10 mph loss at WOT (I wouldn't know since this boat is brand new to me), only being able to max out at 4900-5000 RPM, slower holeshot (again wouldn't know because the holeshot this time was a helluva lot better than last time), and rough idle. SO I am definitely experiencing 2/4 and thinking now that I need to check coils and plugs asap. I did read about a service bulletin 2009-026, which is I'm guessing something like a recall? Anyone have any information on this? If not, I will buy the new coils and new plugs and replace and hope that helps. I read that it is impossible to detect on the ECU a misfire on 2 strokes so here we are. I will also be starting a thread on the Mercury outboard forum, probably more appropriate.
Also, I noticed absolutely no rooster tail today despite trimming all the way up. I do realize I am still too low and will be putting a JP on soon. But that didn't help the RPM situation at all either.