Just an update: I took the boat and stuck the motor in the lake and tried starting. Still seemed like the engine wasn't turning over fast enough. Took it home and found some help with turning the engine over while checking voltage drops across the whole starting circuit. Turns out i was dropping 2 volts (should be under half a volt) from the + battery terminal to line side of the start relay. It seems i had a loose connection at the battery clamp. It could be that after some cranking, that this bad connection may have been dropping more voltage. Anyway, remade the connection and started the motor up. I am not sure if that was the whole problem all along or if the slight adjustment to the TPM voltage may have helped with quicker starts. By this time i had already cranked on it a while. I will try a cold start again on monday and report back.

Thanks everyone for the help. A special thank you to TLW for his help and wisdom on Mercury engines!

update: After finding a loose connection at the + terminal on the battery clamp (where the wire is attached to the clamp), I took it to the lake and it started up pretty quick on the second turn of the key. Motor seems to idle much better also. So maybe it had something to do with the TPS adjustment to some degree as well as gaining a couple of volts that were lost at the battery clamp. I guess time will tell if my ramp frustrations will improve as time goes. Thanks again to all for the help/comments.

I have 1999 200 EFI, I notice when I leave it parked in storage for a week with the engine tilt up, it has a hard time starting. If I leave it parked with the engine down I have no issues.

Down here in South Texas the saltwater guys install two cranking batteries in parallel for Mercury engines just for the cranking amp requirements. One boat builder provides one cranking battery for a Suzuki motor but will provide two as default for a Mercury motor.

I think figured out what's causing my occasional starting issues. I found one of my plug wires with the internal metal clip that snaps onto the spark plug came loose inside the wire housing and was not providing a snug connection to the plug. My engine wouldn't start this past Sunday so i went to check my plugs and found the faulty wire much looser than the others and when I pulled it of the plug the metal clip was on the plug; rather than inside the wire. Now I need to find a set of wires and replace them. :-)