On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:30:24 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:21:56 -0400, "Reginald P. Smithers III"
wrote:

On a serious note, if I was in the market for an OB, my gut reaction
would be to with the 4 stroke, but before i plucked down all of that
money on either ETEC or 4 stroke, I would do some serious research.

As long as we are in on-topic discussion mode here, I'll confess that
I looked at four strokes seriously when I bought the second Contender.
I spent a lot of time around the two marinas I normally hang at
talking to guys who owned four strokes and all the reports were
positive initially. After a while, I began to notice that the
occasional "damn engine" curses began and by the time the end of that
summer rolled around, I was convinced that they are as problematic as
any other outboard in serious use.

Please note the serious use clause.

AFter taking a few of these boat out, to me anyway, they didn't
perform as I would have expected them to given weight to hp ratio. Now
a lot of that depends on gear, fuel, prop, etc., but to me the four
strokes I ran didn't have the throttle response, low end power or
power at cruise that I was used to with the FICHT on the Ranger. They
were also noiser than I expected. The one exception was the Verado
when they were introduced, but they were gas hogs - might as well take
a gas station with you on a fishing trip.

With my FICHT experience, I had a lot of confidence that the 150/175
hp block problem was very well contained. After looking over the
specs, and based on my experience with higher hp FICHTS (200 and up),
my natural inclination was to go with ETEC. Naturally, I found a 23
Hydra-Sports that had a 200 HO ETEC on it and I was blown away by the
power, efficiency and overall performance compared to the four strokes
I ran. The difference between ETEC and FICHT was startling. I though
the FICHTs I owned were pretty nifty, ETEC just out performed the
FICHT and in my opinion, my FICHTs had it all over four strokes.

I said, I normally use my boat for 100 - 125 hrs a year, so I my usage
is probably substantially less than your. Since I tend to keep my cars
and boats, longer than the average person, I would want to get some data
on ETEC that have over 2500 hrs on them. You really would have to talk
to some professional guides to see anyone with that kind of hours on a
fairly new engine, but it would be a great enduser feedback.

How many hours do you have on those ticking time bombs anyway?

I can't speak to 2500 hours, but I can speak to ETECs @ 1700 hours
with no problems. The FICHTS on the original Contender have 2700
hours and are going through their very first rebuild.

On my boat, I have a little over 70 hours on this engine, but that was
due to extenuating circumstances last summer and this summer - I spent
a lot of time traveling here and there and this summer has been pretty
much the same.

Hopefully, this Fall and early Winter, I will be able to take
advantage of some down time and use the boat a little more than I have
the past two Falls - which is were I run most of the time anyway.

The Key West can be bought with an Etec or a Yamaha. The salesman/marina
owner talked me into going Yamaha. He left no doubt which he preferred. So,
the Key West 186 CC with the 4 stroke, Yamaha 150 is on the way.