Kawi 550 Wont Start

It was sitting for a while and has a few known problems. The gas was old (had stabilizer in it) so I replaced it with fresh gas. There was initially NO SPARK so I swapped my friends electrical box into mine and now I have spark. So with a good spark and clean fuel the engine won't run even for a second - even after I directly squirt fuel into the air cleaner.

Now my friends electrical box has his rpm limiter disabled (wires cut) so when I put it in my ski I left these wires unattached. Could this be a problem? I think I can actually hook these wires up if you think I should.

The ski has new pistons and a rebored cylinder that was only used one season. It also has a small air leak that was actually the cause of the originally engine seizure. But it ran fine the one season with the new pistons and never overheated with them so I don't believe that this is an issue.

When I am cranking the engine, I see no smoke from the air cleaner or exhaust indicating that the fuel I squirt in the air cleaner is actually burning so I am a little confused...

Any ideas?

always worth sticking in new plugs. Does it fire ever? Also check you have not flooded it.

Perform a functional test on your kill switch with a multimeter.

OK, but why would I be seeing the spark plugs firing if the kill switch was defective? When you press the kill switch you get NO SPARK, correct??

ditto that, they (piston port engines) flood real easy. Take is easy on pouring gas in the carb, it is just pooling up in the crank case.

Anyway, among other things try a timing light. You can make a crude mark on the pto just to see if the spark is steady and more or less in the right spot.

Ok I think I know the culprit, I am willing to bet that the half moon key on the flywheel is sheered not allowing the spark to hit the gas at the correct time

Naw, there is no reason to suspect that. It ran fine for a whole season and then sat unused for two years. I am going to double check everything this weekend: compression, fuel, spark, etc. Then I am going to remove the flame arrestor and spray starting fluid directly down the carburetor throat. If the ski doesn't at least bark once during cranking this time I am going to break something in

OK, I finally got it started. As soon as I sprayed starter fluid into the carburetor it started after a little cranking. I don't know why started fluid works so much better than straight gas but it does...

I now discovered I have a big air leak! I started a new thread to discuss this nightmare...