Mercury Optimax 150

[Rammin On]

Anyone out there have experiences with these motors? Good/bad/indifferent.

 

[mberry]

Should be a good motor. Merc's engines in the 150+hp range (maybe even down to 90hp) are built by Yamaha. Yamaha makes some of the best small engines in out there as far as I am concerned. Hope this helps.



Mark.

 

[Cummins Thunder]

I would avoid the optimax.

You ever heard of the Evinrude FICHT? Probably the worst boat motor ever made!

OMC (former parent company to Evinrude) went bankrupt in 2001 because of the FICHT line of motors.

Dad has a 26ft Glacier Bay which he purchase new in 1999 with a pair of Evinrude Ocean Runner FICHT engines, the engines were great for about 8 hours of use... They were soon melting pistons, having injector issues, cooling problems, and many other things I have since forgotten about.

The boat was frequently in the shop having warranty work being done, and I mean every other month it made its way to ParkSide marina to have the engines pulled and rebuilt. Finally in 1999 they gave him a brand new pair of 2000 model year power heads, they were no better! same old crap went on and on.

Finally about mid way thru 2000 they gave him a pair of 2001 power heads and a set of omc renegade off shore 4 blade props, the props were supposed to let the motor turn more rpm's and keep the pistons happy... Didn't work!



He became hopeless and soon put the boat up for sale, however no one would buy because of the FICHTs, he ended up keeping it and in 2003 had it repowered with Suzuki 4 strokes.

The Zukis run great! But are more slugish then the FICHTs, but wait... THEY RUN CORRECTLY!!



So you ask, what does this have to do with me buying optimax Mercs?

Well, both engines use the same technology, and both have LOTS of problems.

Some people have had good luck with both engines, some have not.

Many have noticed that they do OK in a very light on shore boat or in very cool fresh water, upset them and they will fight back!



I would recommend that you go with a NON high pressure direct injection motor, rather, stick to a port injection 4 stroke.

The Suzuki motor is the best bang for the buck and is supposed to be the same motor used in EFI Yamaha outboards.



But if not on a budget, I would without a doubt buy a Honda EFI 4 stroke.



Hope this helps you a bit. .



CJ

 

[HeavyHauler]

We used to call the Optimax motors "Opti-pops". They had big problems with the heads dang near blowing off the block if they were ever put under any stress. They were just crap if you ever wanted to run them hard.



It would probably be an ok motor if you were just going fishing, but even then I would recommend a Yahama. They're a great all-around motor. I've ran a few boats that had the V-Max series motor.