two bad weekends at the river:(
 

well last weekend i took my baja out for a 20mile easy run,,in my last no wake zone,,,my imco locked up or hit somthing an took out the out drive. monday morning like most boaters i was on the phone trying to find a replacement,,,i ended up with a bravo xr,,,,i was very happy! we took out for a test run,my friend told me he thought my timing was off,,was very hard to start,,,but boat still ran ok. So i drug boat down to orange beach,,,floated off the trailer,and spun the starter,it seemed to hydro lock,,,well once again like most boaters i went to a local marine parts store and purchased another starter in 45 minutes its on and rolling over the motor,,,well back to the landing,,,never off trailer,,spun that new one,,,not even a hour old! Days like this are really hard,your boat on the trailer,and plenty of cigarette boats are running on the bay.:poopoo:

I know how you feel!

Me too.

if you broke 2 starters,something is wrong,i would pull the plugs and check for water before trying to start it again,if no water,spin it over with coil unhooked so there is no spark.if it turns over like it should,retard the timing before attempting to start it,and time it after it starts,let us know the outcome,i hope it is not water in cylinder,good luck.

Any water in the oil?

pulled plugs,,,they r all appear to be lite golden brown,,,i haven't checked timing completely yet,,,i had the light and the tools in the boat,was gonna do that in the lake. i fear it is way advanced,, the manual calls for 14degree at idle with module grounded,,an 34 degree @4500 rpm,,,,i did check advance while it was n boat storage,,it was 43,,,way to much.
owned boat for years now, every year its oil change,,an every other year its plugs wires rotor and cap,never checked timing though.
could the module or the pick up in the distributor cause these issues?
what would my plugs look like if i was ingesting water?

did you crank motor with plugs out? if ingesting water plugs look wet. or steam-cleaned white.

yes,,no gas or water blowing out the cylinders,,tomorrow i will submerse the lower unit an try again an see if any water blows out the cylinders. i will check the oil tomorrow as well.

Just thinking out loud here. If your full advance was 9 degrees to fast it would stand to reason that your base timing was also 9* too fast. This would make it a bear to start.