High horse power outboard - which maker?

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ParkerS

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Looking at a new sport fishing boat around 25-26 foot, will need 200 to 250HP to give the required performance.

Not keen on a stern drive as it seems difficult to get competent repair / service on them in remote areas, especially as they get older and need more attention.

Hence my thought are towards a single outboard with a small trolling / back up. Not keen on twins for the poor power / weight / fuel use ratio and to me there are two of them to cause trouble / expense.

My immediate preference is towards Japanese, Honda / Suzuki / Yamaha.

Does anyone have ant thoughts / comments / suggestions on any to favour or avoid?

Thanks Sid
 
For best "hole shot" and acceleration a direct injection 2 stroke such as Evinrude E-TEC or Mercury Optimax or ProXS .
 
2 stroke is my preference. I'd go for Optimax... and watch others with equal power from 4 strokers on similar boats go green with envy... :-)
 
All these engines are not cheap. Some come with a good 5 year warranty, maybe even longer?? Four strokes are very nice for long distance cruising, two strokes have better initial acceleration. Suzuki probably have a more "aggressive ' pricing policy. All the above engines are very nice. they are all great until they go wrong. and they eventually will.! Are you going to service it yourself? To keep the warranty it will really need be serviced by the franchised dealer probably. The best guys to "chat" to are the guys on the rib net forum. They love this stuff. if it was me..Yamaha
 
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"New " new or new to you? My BiL has just bought a boat with an old 40hp 2-stroke. It's much lighter than the 30hp Honda 4-stroke he intends to replace it with which means a lower transom height and a tail down attitude. A modern design will probably be able to cope with the additional transom hung weight of a 4-stroke and your proposed vessel will be built to cope with a suitable outboard, I suppose. A neighbour has twin 75 4-strokes on his new 20' sport fishing boat. He says the saving in fuel is amazing. I'd prefer a twin engine set-up myself due to the reliability and safety aspects stemming from the redundancy of power plant.

It's horses for courses, I suppose.
 
I was considering the same issues with a new outboard; its very easy to miss a service invalidate the guarantee . I was looking at The mercury range from the states: but the remanufactured range .

If you look at the link below , and click on the remanufacturing guide you'll see that blocks , heads, gearcases, superchargers etc etc are all available to rebuild you ob if anything goes wrong.

https://www.mercurymarine.com/en/us/engines/outboard/remanufacturing

What happens with a Suzuki or honda when the g'tee runs out? Where do you get Spares?

I'd guess that american engines probably use a tiny bit more fuel, but when you factor in the covience of cheap rebuilds they look very attractive.

Q: are these remanufactured ob's actually available in the UK, or would you have to ship from the states?
 
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I have been hugely impressed by modern 4 stroke high powered o/b engines. We have a 35HP (I think) Yamahon a 6m RIB at our club and what I most like about it is the electronic fuel injection just like a car. You turn the key and it starts and idles immediately and beautifully. I don't know about power to weight but I have driven this a lot over now 5 years with no problems and remarkably low fuel consumption.
I was taken for a trip on a friend's new 26ft fishing boat. He has 2x 175HP (I think). He had changed from inboard twin V8 petrol engined older heavier boat and was pleased. Up on the plane at 25knots he opened up the throttles and you sink bank into the seat to a max 47knots.
The same guy on a previous 25fter have a Volvo V8 stern drive with contra rotating props. He changed to a big Mercury o/b and the improvement was amazing. Quieter faster and less fuel consumption.
So while this new motor will be expensive it should be quite reliable a joy to use and cheap to run. Yes as far as I can tell the Japanese brands are very good. My own opinion is that one engine is enough if it is well looked after. olewill
 
All interesting points, thank you.

My personal bias is towards Honda, as I had good experience of their industrial engines, also their outboards have a long warranty and a well respected dealer / service agent near to where the boat will be based.

Again, a little biased against Mercury as I had poor experience with a previous Mercruiser - probably down to a lack of good dealer support.

Good thoughts to consider.
 
Depending on where you are based, Honda servicing may be a problem. Ask yourself how far you are prepared to travel to have this done.
 
Access to service and parts is crucial.

All else equal my experience from Mercury (and therefore partially Yamaha and Mariner), JohnnyRude, Honda and Suzuki outboards would make me go for the Suzuki 4-stroke (Suzuki 2-strokes out of the question). A friend's Evirunde E-tec 90 hp is impressive so def. would check these before deciding.

Evinrude took new steps on these series, both technically and regarding service, not least automated winterization.
 
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I think that you will find that there is very little difference between modern 2- and 4-stroke engines nowadays in relation to fuel consumption. I did a bit of an analysis a while ago comparing a Mariner Optimax 75 (direct fuel injected 2-stroke) with a Honda 75 (4-stroke) and found that, if anything, the 2-stroke was slightly lower fuel consumption at higher revs, but little in it really. Certainly not worse, as they used to be. I don't know if this holds at higher engine sizes, but you could do a similar analysis.

https://shetlandf4.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/fuel-consumption-2-vs-4-stroke/

We have an Optimax 75 and are pretty pleased with it, although there have been some annoying niggles from time to time, but nothing we couldn't fix ourselves. We get about 2 NM/litre out of it, sometimes more. Agree that you need to keep the service history up to date, else the warranty will be void (with most brands, not just Mariner).
 
Tohatsu power heads were commonly used across many brands, Mercury and Mariner most notably. Their 200hp 2-strokes were fitted to a research craft I had dealings with n the '80's. They were subsequently tuned to produce 260 without a drop off in reliability.
 
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