Ok, I have a dinosaur of a motor and I have been searching around the site for a little while today and I think someone here may be able to help me out. I only paid $300 for this boat with the motor so I dont want to take it to a marine shop that charges 10 times as much as the boat is worth. I bought it to mess around with as a little project boat but I am new to the marine world. I will keep this as short as possible, I know a good bit about cars but not anything at all about outboards. The last registration on the boat is 75 but I was told the motor is probably a 60's model. It is a johnson 4 cylinder w/ a coil and distributor. My problem is that I am not getting any fire out of the coil and I have replaced it the other day w/ a new one and even swapped it out thinking it was bad. I have rewired everything that goes from the relay box to the stator/ coil/ distributor. I am still not gettin any fire, I understand that the stator could be bad but am I wrong by saying the motor would still fire even if the stator was bad? I am gonna try and change the points is the dist but other than that I dont know what else to do. My BIG QUESTION is does this coil have to be grounded, I know in a car it is not grounded but DOES THE COIL HAVE TO BE GROUNDED TO THE BLOCK/BATTERY? If any of you guys have any advice I would be greatly appreciative. BTW I have checked compression and it is 105 on 2 cylinders and 100 on 2, does that sound alright for the 75hp? Also if anyone lives in the Mid GA/Alabama line area and would be interested in helping a novice out then I wouldnt be able to thank you enough. Thanks again for any and all advice.