is this a new problem ? plate fit and holes are needed to let some air pass to vaporize and carry the fuel inside the crankcase on the upstroke.

jmho

may as well focus on carb adjustments, cleaning, sparks ? etc….

btw nothing wrong with being 36 years old….. my 9.5 is 55 this year & works fine

Will have to have a look at one of my carbs, don’t really remember… Again, although these carbs were more or less the same through the years, there were many minor little changes. I don’t recall any bulletins/updates on this issue though. And yeah, that choke shutter sure doesn’t fit very well, sometimes I see that the shutters are bent causing this issue. But, this is usually because someone was in there messing around with it or attempted to remove/install the choke shutter. But, this one looks untouched, the screw heads are still dimpled. OMC didn’t want techs in there messing with the choke/throttle butterflies only because the screws were more likely to fall out and get sucked through the engine after being removed/installed. It is important to note that the screw threads on the back side are also dimpled during assembly in an effort to keep the screws from falling out. So, if you attempt to remove the screws, you are likely to mess up the threads on the choke shaft as well…
So, what to do here… I would agree that there are two many holes here…I guess OMC was trying to keep the engine from quickly stalling out once started with more of a solid choke butterfly, giving the owner a chance to push the choke in before it stalls out. Unfortunately, all the holes lead to hard starting cold. Decent 8hp carb bodies are surely hard to find, they are different from the 6hp versions. I’m wondering if you could try soldering one of the bottom holes shut, or perhaps a pop rivet. Screws/nuts should be avoided for all the reasons mentioned above. The other thing that makes these things hard to start cold is the damn recoil interlock that prevents/jams the recoil at higher throttle settings. For my money, the interlock is set too low, but there is no way of “adjusting it”.
Will have a look at some carbs I have to see what there chokes look like…D
PS- Don’t attempt to get one of these newer 6-8s to idle like the older 6hps, will never happen. I oftentimes end up retarding the throttle pick up to make sure the throttle plate is completely closed at the lowest RPM the thing will run at…Later models (86 and later) had that crazy carb with the throttle cracking screw and no set throttle pick up point, I’m guessing this was an attempt to deal with erratic idle adjustments that plagued the older models.

I agree, the choke shutter fit on that 8hp carb is poor…This will only add to starting difficulties created by all those holes. Unfortunately, choke shutter replacement/adjustment isn’t an option due to the reasons I mentioned….You can try the 8hp carb I have if it might help, the choke shutter fits much better than yours….