1987 60hp Mercury Mariner Outboard Setup Timing Link Sync Tdc

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Each engine will be different - but you want to try get the engine idling with the carbs as closed as possible, and have a little bit of a gap between trigger arm and carbs, so that the timing will advance a few degrees (increasing rpms) before the carbs start to open. Some engines need the carbs open more, experiment till you get a nice choppy idle and snappy throttle. You can play around and adjust- the ONE thing that matters most is MAX degrees - this is what will melt pistons.. take 2 degrees off the manual spec to give you a margin of safety :)

Showing steps to find true TDC, Setting up primary WOT advance, Max throttle stop - and hopefully somewhat correctly the primary / idle setup..

Bear in mind this is for my 1990 60hp 3 cylinder 2 carb motor but shd cover most older merc mariners. My cranking WOT spark advance is 28 degrees, which should = 23 at WOT (5300) rpm according to manual.

Also basically a quick run down of carb setup - Hope it helps!

Note: When u are done with all these, you set the idle via the thin bolt in the center of the linkage (you set the idle by adjusting the idle timing actually - NOT the carbs opening, hence why the idle stop should be the screw and NOT the carb butterflies at zero opening). You want around 4-7 degrees at idle. Once the idle and everything else is right, you set the primary pickup on the carbs (first bulge) - to have about a 1mm gap before the carbs tang gets contacted by the little pin when applying throttle from idle, what this 1mm does is advance timing slightly (5 degrees about) before the carbs start opening, this is an ideal setup and what you want, a tiny increase in timing before the carbs start opening.