When I place the cowl on after the carb is set, the engine looses RPM will often die. The cowl is obvously too close to the carb inlet and restricts it. I've tried to set the carb leaner only to cause stalling, etc., if I run without the cowl it sucks up water.
Is this a common problem on this boat? Should bore thru the cowl cover? Or is the carb goofed up and can't handle the operating range? As it is now the boat is unuseable.

I am not too familiar with that particular boat, but a lot of boats run much better with some additional air openings for the carb...just make sure to open up in a way that will not direct water spray into the carb. You can make the opening behind the carb or use reverse scoops, etc...

Miss Elam 1/8 scale Pro Boat. I think something is wrong with your adjustments or setuo because I have a 1/8 scale miss elam pro boat and it runs just fine and the cowl is more than 1/2 inch away from carb so there isnt a carb restriction from cowl. The thing thats happens most often on the pro boats is people try leaning them out to get more speed and actually start starving the engines of fuel. Try richening the carb back up and see if that helps. Another thing is to let the engine run for several seconds to warm up before taking off, especcially if water is cool. RUSS

Thanks Russ and Marc
Today I think I finally got the darn thing dialed in. I had to lean the low aprox 1/2 turn and fatten up the high the same.
It just seems like it races high when started out of water. When it's in the water and has some load on it, it runs well (dah).
I've found it doesn't like to put around! Unless you give it some throttle even on turns it likes to plow and take on water.
But, I guess it wasn't made for trolling!