I have a 24 hp honda beavertail that i bought from a friend. It had been sitting for a while, but I finally got it to fire up today after some new spark plugs, fresh oil, clean carb, etc. Starts up great with the choke on but when i put the choke off, the engine idles up and down drastically. Once it goes down, i see some mechanism switch which i believe opens the throttle and then the motor revs up, then falls, mechanism opens throttle, revs up, etc. Guy at the honda shop i spoke with on the phone seems to think that there isn't enough fuel getting to the engine. He said he has seen a few of these models come through and each time he has had to install an external electric fuel pump and everything works fine. Can anyone confirm this or offer up any other suggestions? Thanks for the help.

the mechanism is the automatic governer, have you tried holding it in one spot to let motor catch up? just to eliminate that as a problem. not sure what else , i'm not much of a mechanic

Yeah, actually if I hold it the engine will smooth out and sounds great! How do I fix the governor issue? What do I adjust?

Sounds to me with the info you've given that you are missing a govener spring. Try adding one and see if it helps at all.

I have an electric fuel pump on my go devil so I really don't know what to tell you about that, except they work great, until the battery goes dead!
Hope this helps.
Smoke

I think the governor is okay because it clicks back and forth like it's supposed to, although I am not exactly sure how it is supposed to function, but it looks normal. Would a dirty carburetor cause this to happen? I think there are still two ports that I haven't been able to get totally clean which would restrict the amount of fuel able to flow through the carburetor into the air stream. The reason I say this is because with the choke on (air restricted) the engine smoothes out, and with the choke off (maximum air flow) the engine begins to rev up and down due to the governor clicking back and forth.

A lack of fuel flow due to a blocked or partially blocked passage will make the motor surge, as it runs out of fuel it automatically chokes itself to stay running, hence the surging as it does this. I am having the same exact problem with my 24hp honda, and right now it's getting a carb rebuild. It's just not enough to clean it or flush it ourselves, I would reccomend getting an experienced mechanic to do this, as they will strip it to the bone and clean all the passages that we can't even find. Then get him to go with you to adjust it as you run it under load, mine will run perfectly without a surge until it has a load on it, but as soon as you drop it in the water you see the effect of it not flowing properly. Carbs are pretty complex inside and it seems something the size of a grain of sand will screw you on the function.