'93 G9 Gas - barely runs after after electrical issue

[jiminpa]

Ok Yamaha guys, need a little direction here for the Club Car guy...
Back story: Friend owns a golf course, Jim-in-PA helps out now and then with fixing stuff. Yesterday while visiting I get "Hey can you take a look at that cart, it won't do anything, I think the battery is dead or something." Well, turns out that the connection on the battery was bad & after that, found the ground connection on the starter/generator to be bad. It had burned the stud almost through and when I went to take it off, it almost fell off in my hand. I took a starter off a parts cart of older vintage, looked right except 2 wire plugin for regulator had wrong socket, but, right wire colors, so, I took a chance and spliced it in.
Well, I thought I had it because it started to spin right over when I touched the gas pedal. Put it all together and jumped on for a test ride. It started, but the best I could get was a fast uneasy idle, not even fast enough to engage the clutch and get the cart moving at a crawl. Ideas? I will add, I removed the fuel tank for access to the starter when I was trying to see if I could salvage the original starter. also, unpluged a control unit of some sort (ignitor?) below the front corner of the fuel tank. (reconnect both when finished) After I did all this the grounds keeper told me the guy who had it out said he was coming down the fairway and it backfired and quit and wouldn't start. I am thinking that the 2 issues I fixed were not the cause, but only compounded the problem.

I am at somewhat of a disadvantage as I am about 40 minutes away from the cart with no internet access at the cart location.

It almost seemed like fuel but gave it a shot of starting fluid in the carb while it was barely running and it made no difference (slightly worse). These Yamahas have no timing adjustment right? Almost seems like late timing, like a timing belt jumped a tooth or something. But these have nothing that can fail in that fashion right? Does it have a keyway that tends to fail or shear keys?

One more thing I should mention, when I first touched the gas pedal to see if I had resolved the starting issue, it took right off, enough so that the cart started to move. It has not run that well since I first hit the pedal.

Do these have a pickup on the flywheel and is the pickup on the inside or outside of the flywheel?

Ideas???

Thanks.