Finally put it in the water and got it to start. I paddled it away from the dock.
Starter is shot or something, I just got a clicking noise when I clicked the key to start. After about a hundred attempts, it finally cranked over and over and over and started after about 15 seconds. Could be the battery but I tried charging it with jumper cables and had the same result.
Incredibly bad idle, it completely dies if the warmup lever is ever closed.
At full throttle it has enough power to get the boat up on its pad, which is extremely surprising to me since it's only 50 HP.
After about 20 minutes it starts to lose power, will only run at a fairly fast idle. After it cools down it runs at full speed again.
The MerControl definitely needs work, but at least I know the engine runs now.
Also while it was in fast idle, water was running out of the upper unit