86 or 92 Mercury 9.9 Cold Start Problems

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Static water line...................
You mentioned that your waterline in your barrel was barely over the cavitation plate. That is a very low static waterline.
When you actually put the engine on the transom and in the water with the normal load onboard that you typically carry you will notice that the waterline on the engine will be drastically different that what it was in the barrel.
That is a change in your static water line. What does this mean or why is it important?
A 2-stroke outboard with small displacement is always a compromise between good WOT performance vs overall running quality through the range.
Very often smaller engines are ported to get the most usable horsepower out of them at a bit of expense of a good idle.....there is one of the compromises mentioned earlier. Not going into cross-flow vs. loop charged but there is a difference in the way they run and idle as well.
So....what does this static water line have to do with idle quality?
The higher the static water line the more back pressure you place on the exhaust. The more back pressure the harder it is to get the exhaust out before we get exhaust reversion at idle through the exhaust port.
What does exhaust reversion have to do with anything?
It dilutes the incoming fresh fuel/air charge for one. Secondly and possibly more important is that it kills some of the crankcase signal (pressure and vacuum inside the crankcase) which can affect your idle mixture and quality.
Static water line and propeller differences (load change) are the two biggest reasons why manufacturers stated a "recommended" Idle needle setting on a carburetor. It is just an initial setting and your engine and it's variables will probably necessitate a deviation of that initial recommendation.
Since you have a tendency to do your homework you will find there are tons of folks who believe the engine should run near perfect at the initial recommended needle setting. Before you go into deeper troubleshooting make some changes in your needle settings to see if you can get a better cold start.
You have yet to mention if you have verified spark or I missed it somewhere?
 
Pappy said:
Static water line...................
...............................
Before you go into deeper troubleshooting make some changes in your needle settings to see if you can get a better cold start.
You have yet to mention if you have verified spark or I missed it somewhere?

I have not had a chance to test the plugs yet but hope to pick up a tester this evening on the way home and do that. I did replace them b/c it's so cheap to do so.
After more research I'm thinking maybe I have the wrong spark plug though. Maybe? The manual shows (Assuming I'm looking at the right one) I should have a Champion L82YC but the plugs in it are NGK BP8HS-10. What would happen if I had the wrong plug. To weak of a spark? To strong of a spark? No spark?

So basically I should do all testing/adjusting either in the water or in a barrel with a static water line equal to what it is while on the boat, in the water, and off the trailer correct? And, I'm essentially wasting my time getting adjustment to good cold start in a tub just over the cavitation plate b/c the back pressure changes with the water line?

You mentioned making changes to the needle to see if we can get to a better cold start. If I understand what you listed above I need to enrich it a tad b/c the back pressure prevents air from escaping the exhaust leaving me with to much air to burn the fuel?
 
Look what else I found.
The check ball in the primer was stuck down in the spring.
Could this be related? It makes sense that would prevent if from sealing but I’m struggling to understand how it would affect the engine performance. Or would it?
 

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That was it. I just left the lake and it's starting without issue every time now.

Thanks everyone for the help. Hopefully this will be my last post for a while about this motor.
I'm glad it's running but going to miss messing with it. This is my first outboard and I've learned SO much throughout the process.
 
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