2003/2004 Yamaha 225 OX66 Throttle or Shifter?

[FyrFyter33]

I have the above motor doing a couple different things, one is motor related and one is shift cable or throttle cable related. The first thing as to the motor is, when I try coming out of the hole like launching during a tournament is has hesitation and "stalls" or drops RPMs for a few seconds and then surges back to normal and then back down, and then back to normal. I think I can kind of feel it doing this while running down river at mid speeds too. Is it a lift pump? I am not sure what is causing this but overall, the motor is running fine except for that little deal. Then, last night I had something new happen. My shifter cable and/or throttle cable kind of locked up. The boat was in forward and I could not get it back to neutral. It was tight and kind of "bound up" at the shifter. I finally reached down and wiggled the cable at the hot foot and moved the shifter and got it to neutral and then it wouldnt go into reverse. Then when I went back to forward the RPMs shot up high and it kinda did whatever it wanted to do and got bound up again. When I tried to give it gas at the hot foot she wouldn't do it hardly, like I had no power or the cable wasnt pulling and giving the motor throttle. THEN what happened was, when I would shift to forward the shfiter WAS the throttle as if the boat didnt even have a hot foot, basically old school throttle at the handle, but then it stopped doing that too. I am going to take it to the shop to get all of this looked at unless yall think there is a couple easy things I can look at myself.

[96 Champ]

I am new to my 200 225 ox66 but from what I have read it could be the VST tank may need cleaned and a filter replacement there and the inline filter also. And check your 02 sensor and clean that also. I changed one of my inline fuel pumps yesterday as it was leaking. when I checked the inline pumps the bolts were almost just finger tight so maybe check those as well. My issue has been with start up.