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K. Smith December 31st 05 09:54 AM

E-Tec warning
 
Yes the endless "software" upgrades have begun it's exactly like the
Ficht debacle. Anyway don't say you haven't been warned this is aboating
NG & this is motors the NG users pay hugely for so ..............


# 7/24/05 8:08:00 PM Submitted by Bulletbuoy (69.14.99.177) from
MICHIGAN says Lol must be bad more like it
As of Friday at the Everstart they had on the Detroit River. The e-tech
had 3 blown power heads, one boat's motor caught on fire and blew the
cowling 30 feet in the error. Forcing the gentlemen aboard to abandon
ship. LOL E tech went over like a fat kid in dodgeball on erie.

K. Smith December 31st 05 11:52 AM

E-Tec warning
 
Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 20:54:22 +1100, "K. Smith" wrote:


Yes the endless "software" upgrades have begun it's exactly like the
Ficht debacle. Anyway don't say you haven't been warned this is aboating
NG & this is motors the NG users pay hugely for so ..............


# 7/24/05 8:08:00 PM Submitted by Bulletbuoy (69.14.99.177) from
MICHIGAN says Lol must be bad more like it
As of Friday at the Everstart they had on the Detroit River. The e-tech
had 3 blown power heads, one boat's motor caught on fire and blew the
cowling 30 feet in the error. Forcing the gentlemen aboard to abandon
ship. LOL E tech went over like a fat kid in dodgeball on erie.



It was Merc Verados.

Nice try Karen.


Better than nice Tom, it's bloody beautiful!!!:-) the post is clear in
what it says, 3 (count 'em three!!) E-Tecs blow at the Everstart (& it
seems that was "as of Friday"), what are you saying now, the rest of the
boating community are just making this up??? I mean do you go to OMC
dealer classes to be able to post this BS??? Even as OMC went into
bankruptcy the dealers were still trying that line to make one last sale
to the gullible, give it up:-)

I'd guess if it wasn't so there would be at least
one other person from that tournament saying it wasn't so??

So it's me just making sure people are kept up to date with how the
latest Ficht experiment is coming along:-) Yes yes we all know they keep
reducing the prices & finding out what the real price is very difficult,
but hey that's what they did trying to flog the fichts, gave the dealers
a 30% markup in rebates etc, so I suppose that might explain why the
dealers will say & do most anything to hook another sucker:-)

Given the detonation vibration/abuse fuel leaks are back (remember the
coast guard ordered a ficht safety recall over them last time??) might I
seriously suggest you wear head protection when you use yours, after all
wouldn't want to see you knocked silly by a blown away cowling:-)

Fear not Tom, I'll do my best to keep you up to date on developments as
the latest consumer funded lean burn at power experiment goes off. Why
have Bomb even gotten away from them????

K


FREDO December 31st 05 02:41 PM

E-Tec warning
 
Karen,

I can be gone for a year or more from this N/G and come back and you are
still talking about the same issues.

IMHO, you must have a personal problem with this company or any company for
that matter that is trying to do the responsible thing for the environment
by trying to reduce the amount of emissions that outboard motors emit.

Hey, next we might even be hearing that diesel motors put out less
particulate emissions than gasoline motors.

Do you have any solutions for the problems they have with these engines or
do you just want to "keep the pot stirred".

Fredo thinking to self: "When I buy my retirement boat I will make sure it's
a S/V with an auxiliary power plant".
Then the problem becomes can I sail it by myself or will I just be stuck in
the harbor hunched over a keyboard every day.

"K. Smith" wrote in message
...
Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 20:54:22 +1100, "K. Smith" wrote:


Yes the endless "software" upgrades have begun it's exactly like the
Ficht debacle. Anyway don't say you haven't been warned this is aboating
NG & this is motors the NG users pay hugely for so ..............


# 7/24/05 8:08:00 PM Submitted by Bulletbuoy (69.14.99.177) from
MICHIGAN says Lol must be bad more like it
As of Friday at the Everstart they had on the Detroit River. The e-tech
had 3 blown power heads, one boat's motor caught on fire and blew the
cowling 30 feet in the error. Forcing the gentlemen aboard to abandon
ship. LOL E tech went over like a fat kid in dodgeball on erie.



It was Merc Verados. Nice try Karen.


Better than nice Tom, it's bloody beautiful!!!:-) the post is clear in
what it says, 3 (count 'em three!!) E-Tecs blow at the Everstart (& it
seems that was "as of Friday"), what are you saying now, the rest of the
boating community are just making this up??? I mean do you go to OMC
dealer classes to be able to post this BS??? Even as OMC went into
bankruptcy the dealers were still trying that line to make one last sale
to the gullible, give it up:-)

I'd guess if it wasn't so there would be at least
one other person from that tournament saying it wasn't so??

So it's me just making sure people are kept up to date with how the
latest Ficht experiment is coming along:-) Yes yes we all know they keep
reducing the prices & finding out what the real price is very difficult,
but hey that's what they did trying to flog the fichts, gave the dealers a
30% markup in rebates etc, so I suppose that might explain why the dealers
will say & do most anything to hook another sucker:-)

Given the detonation vibration/abuse fuel leaks are back (remember the
coast guard ordered a ficht safety recall over them last time??) might I
seriously suggest you wear head protection when you use yours, after all
wouldn't want to see you knocked silly by a blown away cowling:-)

Fear not Tom, I'll do my best to keep you up to date on developments as
the latest consumer funded lean burn at power experiment goes off. Why
have Bomb even gotten away from them????

K




[email protected] December 31st 05 03:45 PM

E-Tec warning
 
I will buy two engines for my Tolman Skiff this year. Probably a 2
cycle (weight) 75-90 hp primary and a 9 hp kicker. So, what is the
story on OMC and the FICHT engines? Any engine reccomendations for
either a new or slightly used engine?


[email protected] December 31st 05 05:58 PM

E-Tec warning
 
maybe the issue is about that. Ficht not ETEc

Manufacturer Identification Code

Details for Recall Number 010055T

Number:
010055T

MIC:


Company:
BOMBARDIER LTD

Company Official:
OMC

Model Name:
EVINRUDE 200 & 225 HP

Model Year:
99 & 20

Problem 1:
FUEL SYSTEM

Problem 2:


HIN:


Case Open Date:
04/10/2001

Disposition:
CLOSED

Case Close Date:


Units:
9000

Campaign Open Date:
04/04/2001

Boat Type:
0

Campaign Close Date:
08/14/2002

Severity:
H

Comments:
EVINRUDE 200 & 225 HP OUTBOARD ENGINES ARE FUEL INJECTED USING FICHT
TECHNOLOGY. BOMBARDIER RECENTLY ACQUIRED OMC AND IS ISSUING A REPAIR
KIT WHICH ADDRESSES THE PROBLEM OF FUEL TUBES DISENGAGING FROM THE
INJECTOR UNITS RESULTING IN FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS. RECALL LTR SENT 12
APRIL 01 TO MARTINE RENAUD. CLOSED BASED ON CUR REPORT THAT 91% OF
AFFECTED UNITS HAVE BEEN CORRECTED. ORIGINAL REQUEST TO CLOSE SUBMITTED
4/29/02. ACTION DELAYED UNTIL 8/14/02 DUE TO PERSONNEL CHANGEOVER.


[email protected] December 31st 05 06:01 PM

E-Tec warning
 
as someone thinking of buying an ETec I appreciate to hear of ANY
suspicous or FICHT like issues ... so if powerheads blow up that IS AN
ISSUE !

I have never heard that happen to a Yamaha 4 stroke. Not once so 3
ETecs per day indicates the FICHT curse is still there

I also like to see more data and like to know where the original post
came from.

No source no value.

Matt


[email protected] December 31st 05 06:04 PM

E-Tec warning
 
P.S.

the post may be from he

http://www.wmi.org/bassfish/bassboar...ors/T84471.htm

didnt have time to find it yet

Later

Matt


K. Smith January 1st 06 05:46 AM

E-Tec warning
 
Gene Kearns wrote:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 22:52:22 +1100, "K. Smith" wrote:


Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 20:54:22 +1100, "K. Smith" wrote:



Yes the endless "software" upgrades have begun it's exactly like the
Ficht debacle. Anyway don't say you haven't been warned this is aboating
NG & this is motors the NG users pay hugely for so ..............


# 7/24/05 8:08:00 PM Submitted by Bulletbuoy (69.14.99.177) from
MICHIGAN says Lol must be bad more like it
As of Friday at the Everstart they had on the Detroit River. The e-tech
had 3 blown power heads, one boat's motor caught on fire and blew the
cowling 30 feet in the error. Forcing the gentlemen aboard to abandon
ship. LOL E tech went over like a fat kid in dodgeball on erie.


It was Merc Verados.

Nice try Karen.


Better than nice Tom, it's bloody beautiful!!!:-) the post is clear in
what it says, 3 (count 'em three!!) E-Tecs blow at the Everstart (& it
seems that was "as of Friday"), what are you saying now, the rest of the
boating community are just making this up??? I mean do you go to OMC
dealer classes to be able to post this BS??? Even as OMC went into
bankruptcy the dealers were still trying that line to make one last sale
to the gullible, give it up:-)



I fail to see what could possibly be, "bloody beautiful!!!:-)" about
some guys wanting to go fishing and having their outboards explode.
You have a twisted sense of humor... and that is assuming that the
unverified report is true.


You are of course correct Gene & certainly I don't think it's funny in
any manner, my comment was not intended as glee that 3 E-Tecs having
failed & if it looked that way I do apologise. This latest attempt at
the ficht is no laughing matter & apologies to all again.

I take it then you agree the poster is talking about 3 very publicly
failed E-Tecs?? & not Merc Verados as Tom was attempting to spin it???


Since this was posted 7/24/2005, you should be able to tell us how
many more blew up and why. Also, tell us more about your source. Is it
true that s/he now posts under the alias
"punklikestosmilelikeadoughnut"?


Is it true?? I have no idea although I'd suggest that given the date &
the event were given if it wasn't true then we might have heard to the
contrary. 24 July isn't all that long ago, well OK it's many upgrades by
ficht standards.



I'd guess if it wasn't so there would be at least
one other person from that tournament saying it wasn't so??



Excellent logic. If one person says it, then it must be true!


Well one person gave some easily checkable details & given that there is
a gaggle of ex OMC dealers always trying to spruik up the market for
these things I'd suggest it's more than likely right. Remember even at
it's worst "only" 1 in 5 fichts failed & given the owners are usually
embarrassed enough over their own stupidity for buying a known defective
product, the dealers do all they can to cover it up & certainly the
suppliers do all they can to hush it up the fact we get any reports at
all is because people at public events like this tell us???

I mean Bill a dealer in all year round boating Florida, was claiming
there were very few ficht failures right up till OMC went under; then
with the other dealers he ran away. Indeed when asked about the evidence
given by failed ficht powerheads he claimed he'd never even seen a
failed ficht!!!:-) Ah dealers ya gotta given credit for neck.


Personally, I'd like to see the initial report and then credible
evidence that backs up the initial allegation. thus far, I see no
credible evidence that this ever happened... primarily because your
cited poster seems to be the only person aware of this occurrence.


I would too Gene but given the stakes involved & the ego of most owners
that is not likely, indeed that's how Ficht was sold as long as it was
by a huge cover up & BS spruiked from dealers, had they not run out of
money they'd still be flogging them.

The owners are basically so embarrassed by their own stupidity that they
will swallow almost any BS because since about say mid 99 nobody could
have bought a ficht & not been aware there were at least possible problems.


So it's me just making sure people are kept up to date with how the
latest Ficht experiment is coming along:-) Yes yes we all know they keep
reducing the prices & finding out what the real price is very difficult,
but hey that's what they did trying to flog the fichts, gave the dealers
a 30% markup in rebates etc, so I suppose that might explain why the
dealers will say & do most anything to hook another sucker:-)



You have proof of this the E-Techs?


I'll never have proof acceptable to some here but there are many reports
exactly like this, I've posted a few already & will give you the rest as
& when I think they're needed, i.e. if I feel the spruikers of this
failed & still very risky technology are attempting to mislead people
into paying money on their sayso, the least I can do is give "my"
opinion (which has been spot on since early 99 re ficht:-)) & then give
some examples of what's available regards "claimed" failures.

Everyone needs to make their own minds up as far as I'm concerned,
however the claims about it being the oil's fault then endless
"upgrades", fuel leaks, rough spots around the mode change (this is
probably detonation by the way) etc etc are all too familiar.



Given the detonation vibration/abuse fuel leaks are back (remember the
coast guard ordered a ficht safety recall over them last time??) might I
seriously suggest you wear head protection when you use yours, after all
wouldn't want to see you knocked silly by a blown away cowling:-)



http://www.uscgboating.org/recalls/recalls_database.htm

I couldn't find these new E-Tech safety recalls regarding fuel leaks
caused by vibration in the above database, can you?


I did say it was a ficht recall Gene, although if that's the extent of
your rejoinder then great:-) The fichts lost injectors & plumbing off
the engines because of detonation, not that any dealer will ever tell
you that, now E-Tec has claimed improvements to how all this & the heads
are fastened, well all that does is try to make the engine strong enough
to survive the detonation, not solve the issue. Again as with ficht we
have fuel leaks in the E-Tecs??? after all it seems Yamaha can contain a
rail pressure of up to 800psi??



Fear not Tom, I'll do my best to keep you up to date on developments as
the latest consumer funded lean burn at power experiment goes off. Why
have Bomb even gotten away from them????



Again, there is nothing wrong with lean burn as long as it is lean
enough. I don't support after-the-sale customer support of the
R&D/Engineering effort, but your supporting evidence of your strong
prejudices just doesn't carry any weight.


Everything is wrong with lean burn but you don't really want to discuss
that, you just want to infer it's OK; when no other engine manufacturers
worldwide are using it at the specific power outputs used here (Please
note the "at the specific power outputs" Gene)

As for carrying weight?? I agree my views never have here Gene even back
when ficht first came out, even when people were putting bill boards up
about failed fichts in Texas, even after OMC went into a table drain,
even when the dealers on mass ran away. I suspect they never will with
you or many in the NG but it's all archived & I rely upon my record
regarding this & will happily go on saying what I say & like ficht I'm
confident I'll be vindicated ...... again.

What I am a little ****ed at is in some forums people are now starting
to use my material outright rather than build upon it, but hey :-)

K



K


K. Smith January 1st 06 05:46 AM

E-Tec warning
 
wrote:
as someone thinking of buying an ETec I appreciate to hear of ANY
suspicous or FICHT like issues ... so if powerheads blow up that IS AN
ISSUE !

I have never heard that happen to a Yamaha 4 stroke. Not once so 3
ETecs per day indicates the FICHT curse is still there

I also like to see more data and like to know where the original post
came from.

No source no value.

Matt



Hi Matt,

These are a few just for you:-) But I need to keep some power dry for
the E-Tec spruikers who will infest this place as soon as the nthn
summer returns:-) But hey I'm confidently & yes sadly predicting there
will be no shortage of powder, just as there wasn't when it was called
ficht:-)

Take care, it's your hard earned money.

http://www.wmi.org/bassfish/bassboar...ors/T82386.htm

http://forums.screamandfly.com/forum...ad.php?t=76469

http://www.wmi.org/bassfish/bassboar...ors/T82453.htm

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/003712.html

K


K. Smith January 1st 06 05:46 AM

E-Tec warning
 
wrote:
I will buy two engines for my Tolman Skiff this year. Probably a 2
cycle (weight) 75-90 hp primary and a 9 hp kicker. So, what is the
story on OMC and the FICHT engines? Any engine reccomendations for
either a new or slightly used engine?


Don't go near them:-) Yes they can be very cheap & yes they'll offer a
fairy tale long warranty, but ............ last time that was no use to
thousands & thousands of people taken in. Remember the huge deep
pocketed & technically savvy corp Bombardier got out of this very early
on (wonder why???). You're now dealing with another corp entity, I have
no idea as to it's structure but if you are going to buy you should.

Do some google groups searching & you'll see the sadness caused by ficht
& then decide not to risk your pleasure time turning into an expensive
nightmare.

K


K. Smith January 1st 06 05:46 AM

E-Tec warning
 
FREDO wrote:
Karen,

I can be gone for a year or more from this N/G and come back and you are
still talking about the same issues.


Glad you're back anyway Fredo.

IMHO, you must have a personal problem with this company or any company for
that matter that is trying to do the responsible thing for the environment
by trying to reduce the amount of emissions that outboard motors emit.

I have a problem with it you're right & so I detail exactly what it is &
nobody has yet even tried to challenge the technical issues, just abuse
me which doesn't bother me even a little.

Hey, next we might even be hearing that diesel motors put out less
particulate emissions than gasoline motors.


No not at all diesels a dirty things even with the new low sulphur fuel
& much better atomisation, so there we agree on at least one thing. As
for me I'd always have a diesel powered boat & never ever allow a diesel
engine to operate in my boat:-)

Do you have any solutions for the problems they have with these engines or
do you just want to "keep the pot stirred".


NO if I did I'd refer you to them at the USPTO but neither do they
(again check the USPTO) the latest attempt has centred on making the
structure strong enough to survive the heat buildup from lean poorly
atomised fuel & then the "sometimes" detonation. The oiling is still a
worry also.


Fredo thinking to self: "When I buy my retirement boat I will make sure it's
a S/V with an auxiliary power plant".
Then the problem becomes can I sail it by myself or will I just be stuck in
the harbor hunched over a keyboard every day.


Maybe try both Fredo, if you get fun & a mix of mental & physical
exercise from both???

K



"K. Smith" wrote in message
...

Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 20:54:22 +1100, "K. Smith" wrote:



Yes the endless "software" upgrades have begun it's exactly like the
Ficht debacle. Anyway don't say you haven't been warned this is aboating
NG & this is motors the NG users pay hugely for so ..............


# 7/24/05 8:08:00 PM Submitted by Bulletbuoy (69.14.99.177) from
MICHIGAN says Lol must be bad more like it
As of Friday at the Everstart they had on the Detroit River. The e-tech
had 3 blown power heads, one boat's motor caught on fire and blew the
cowling 30 feet in the error. Forcing the gentlemen aboard to abandon
ship. LOL E tech went over like a fat kid in dodgeball on erie.


It was Merc Verados. Nice try Karen.


Better than nice Tom, it's bloody beautiful!!!:-) the post is clear in
what it says, 3 (count 'em three!!) E-Tecs blow at the Everstart (& it
seems that was "as of Friday"), what are you saying now, the rest of the
boating community are just making this up??? I mean do you go to OMC
dealer classes to be able to post this BS??? Even as OMC went into
bankruptcy the dealers were still trying that line to make one last sale
to the gullible, give it up:-)

I'd guess if it wasn't so there would be at least
one other person from that tournament saying it wasn't so??

So it's me just making sure people are kept up to date with how the
latest Ficht experiment is coming along:-) Yes yes we all know they keep
reducing the prices & finding out what the real price is very difficult,
but hey that's what they did trying to flog the fichts, gave the dealers a
30% markup in rebates etc, so I suppose that might explain why the dealers
will say & do most anything to hook another sucker:-)

Given the detonation vibration/abuse fuel leaks are back (remember the
coast guard ordered a ficht safety recall over them last time??) might I
seriously suggest you wear head protection when you use yours, after all
wouldn't want to see you knocked silly by a blown away cowling:-)

Fear not Tom, I'll do my best to keep you up to date on developments as
the latest consumer funded lean burn at power experiment goes off. Why
have Bomb even gotten away from them????

K





JohnH January 1st 06 01:10 PM

E-Tec warning
 
On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 12:27:43 GMT, Gene Kearns
wrote:

On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 16:46:43 +1100, "K. Smith" wrote:

No. There really is no point in discussing your set opinions.


What I am a little ****ed at is in some forums people are now starting
to use my material outright rather than build upon it, but hey :-)

K


Good point. What you post on Usenet belongs to you. Check out some of
the TOS of these web based forums... what you post becomes the
property of the forum owner! Ever wonder why Peggie (had to) quit
posting in them?


Good morning Gene, and Happy New Year. Looks like the group is pretty quiet this AM.
Too much partying maybe?

--
John H.

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

K. Smith January 2nd 06 10:02 AM

E-Tec warning
 
Gene Kearns wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 16:46:43 +1100, "K. Smith" wrote:

No. There really is no point in discussing your set opinions.


What I am a little ****ed at is in some forums people are now starting
to use my material outright rather than build upon it, but hey :-)

K



Good point. What you post on Usenet belongs to you. Check out some of
the TOS of these web based forums... what you post becomes the
property of the forum owner! Ever wonder why Peggie (had to) quit
posting in them?


I didn't realise that thanks Gene.

I've looked at the "forums" several times but try as they do, they still
seem to come across sanitised.

I know this place is a bit wild & woolly at times however at least
everyone says what they say pretty much without censorship or commercial
concerns.

K

James Hebert January 2nd 06 06:30 PM

E-Tec warning
 
In article , "K. Smith"
wrote:

wrote:


[material deleted]
I also like to see more data and like to know where the original post
came from.


Here the reference to "the original post" is to a comment that three
Evinrude E-TEC motors had blown up at a fishing tournament held in Lake
Erie around July 24, 2005

[Karen replies]
These are a few just for you:



http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/003712.html


Thanks for citing my website as a part of your effort to discredit the
E-TEC, but I am afraid the article you cited contains not one word of
any problems with the E-TEC motor at a fishing tournament in Lake Erie
around July 24, 2005. As a matter of fact, all the articles in the cited
thread were posted about a week before the fishing tournament held in
Lake Erie around July 24, 2005.

I don't see how they corroborate the initial claim about all of these
engines blowing up. I am local to that area and have not heard anything
about it.

James Hebert January 2nd 06 08:06 PM

E-Tec warning
 
In article ,
Harry Krause wrote:

James Hebert wrote:
In article , "K. Smith"
wrote:

wrote:


[material deleted]
I also like to see more data and like to know where the original post
came from.


Here the reference to "the original post" is to a comment that three
Evinrude E-TEC motors had blown up at a fishing tournament held in Lake
Erie around July 24, 2005

[Karen replies]
These are a few just for you:


http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/003712.html


Thanks for citing my website as a part of your effort to discredit the
E-TEC, but I am afraid the article you cited contains not one word of
any problems with the E-TEC motor at a fishing tournament in Lake Erie
around July 24, 2005. As a matter of fact, all the articles in the cited
thread were posted about a week before the fishing tournament held in
Lake Erie around July 24, 2005.

I don't see how they corroborate the initial claim about all of these
engines blowing up. I am local to that area and have not heard anything
about it.



Aussie rules?


I do wonder about the Australian origin of Karen's E-TEC criticism. The
principal competitor to E-TEC in the direct-injection business is
Orbital, an Australian company whose products are licensed to Mercury
for their OptiMax. Do we hear these same concerns about OptiMax?

Also, now that the Bombardier manufacturing facility in Wisconsin where
the E-TEC injector is made has been sold to a company owned in part by
Orbital, will this criticism let up?

Here are the details of that recently announced bit of business, from an
article I posted some time ago on CONTINUOUSWAVE.COM.

-------------

MORE NEWS ON BRP SALE OF DELAVAN
by Jim Hebert
CONTINUOUSWAVE.COM
11-14-2005

It seemed to come as a surprise, but the announcement of the sale of
Bombardier's facility in Delavan, Wisconsin, to Synerject was
foreshadowed one year in advance. On November 10, 2004 the intention to
sell the Delavan plant was announced by Bombardier in Quebec. To the
very same day a year later, word came that the plant in east-central
Wisconsin which manufactures the fuel injectors and electronic engine
controllers for Evinrude and Johnson outboard motors was sold. The
announcement came in the form of a press release from Australia's
ORBITAL. The actual buyer will be Synerject, a U.S.-based 50:50 joint
venture between Orbital and Siemens VDO Automotive.

Synerject is the non-vehicle marketing and manufacturing arm for Siemens
VDO fuel injectors and the Orbtial Combustion Process (OCP) controls.
The firm is the supplier of the air-assisted direct injection hardware
used in the Mercury OptiMax two-stroke outboards. It will now take over
the manufacture of Bombardier's E-TEC fuel injectors. However, BRP will
retain the intellectual property rights to their patented designs.

Rod Houston, CEO of Synerject, explained the rationale behind the
purchase. The Delavan plant, he said, "is complementary to Synerject's
core business of manufacturing and supplying engine management modules
for the non-automotive market." He expects the acquisition to "bring a
significant increase in revenue and make a material contribution to
Synerject's growth."

When asked about the E-TEC fuel injector, he made clear that "the
transaction involves only assets relating to the manufacture of the fuel
injectors and engine management modules. There'll be no transfer of
intellectual property rights for E-TEC to Synerject. Synerject continues
to have the exclusive rights to the OCP system and this continues to be
a key focus of Synerject."

It is expected that long-term contracts will assure BRP of a steady
supply of the E-TEC injectors, a prime component of their new line of
outboard motors. Sales of E-TEC engines are showing strong growth. Roche
Lambert recently sent very enthusiastic notices to the Bombardier
outboard dealer network highlighting impressive sales figures and growth
figures over 200-percent from a year ago.

Synerject foresees strong growth in their non-vehicular markets,
particular in components and controllers for motorcycles, which are
expected to show very strong sales growth in developing Asia markets
like China and India.

The sale makes strange bedfellows of Mercury and Evinrude. The prime
components of their two-stroke engine fuel injection systems will now be
manufactured by a common supplier, although using completely different
technologies.

For the approximately 60 employees at the Delavan plant, the notice of a
buyer is probably very welcome after a year of suspense.

-------------------

[email protected] January 2nd 06 08:44 PM

E-Tec warning
 
thousands & thousands of people taken in. Remember the huge deep
pocketed & technically savvy corp Bombardier got out of this very early
on (wonder why???). You're now dealing with another corp entity, I have
no idea as to it's structure but if you are going to buy you should.



Excuse my ignorance but isnt ETec/Evinrude still owned by BRP ? I
thought thats Bomardier Recreational Products = Bombardier?

Whats the deal here?

Matt


[email protected] January 3rd 06 07:01 AM

E-Tec warning
 

K. Smith wrote:
Yes the endless "software" upgrades have begun it's exactly like the
Ficht debacle. Anyway don't say you haven't been warned this is aboating
NG & this is motors the NG users pay hugely for so ..............


# 7/24/05 8:08:00 PM Submitted by Bulletbuoy (69.14.99.177) from
MICHIGAN says Lol must be bad more like it
As of Friday at the Everstart they had on the Detroit River. The e-tech
had 3 blown power heads, one boat's motor caught on fire and blew the
cowling 30 feet in the error. Forcing the gentlemen aboard to abandon
ship. LOL E tech went over like a fat kid in dodgeball on erie.


I am starting to wonder how true the post is (not Karens but
Bulletboys). After all, these are the FIRST and ONLY blown ETecs I
have heard of ... And the fact that 3 motors kabooom at one tournament
can IMO only have one or more of the following reasons the likelyhood
of which I cant assess due to a lack of data:

- ETecs are worse than FICHTs
- The story is not true
- There is a lot of ETecs with a manufacturing defect and the 3 are
part of that
- Whoever set up those 3 motors made a mistake with all 3
- Extreme coincidence


If FICHTS kabooomed at a rate of 1 in 5, how much kaboooms are known of
ETecs and what is the estimated percentage of kabooomed ETecs of ETecs
built?

Matt

P.S.

To add a few comments for clarifications and avoid arguments (how do I
know ? ;)

- I think DFI motors are the best marine outboard motors out there (as
long as they hold up)
- I OWN a 2 stroke DFI motor
- I am neutral in the DFI sucks or rules discussion
- For personal reasons I like to know of anything, esp problems around
DFI (esp. ETec and Optimax)
- I believe Karen has a substantial knowledge about combustion motors
- I think Karens theories about DFI motors are true. But may not
impact the motors life as much as anticipated


K. Smith January 3rd 06 11:51 AM

E-Tec warning
 
wrote:
thousands & thousands of people taken in. Remember the huge deep


pocketed & technically savvy corp Bombardier got out of this very early
on (wonder why???). You're now dealing with another corp entity, I have
no idea as to it's structure but if you are going to buy you should.




Excuse my ignorance but isnt ETec/Evinrude still owned by BRP ? I
thought thats Bomardier Recreational Products = Bombardier?

Whats the deal here?

Matt


I don't know Matt as I suggested you should find out. Without saying
this is right I'd suggest you see if the Bombardier family itself has
privately taken over the recreational products range including jet skis
etc??? If that's right then you're dealing with that Co.

I guess you might also wonder why Bombardier itself would almost give
such hugely significant technology away??? particularly having paid lots
to acquire OMC & the name Ficht:-) which nobody seems to want to mention
these days (I may have mentioned the war but I think I got away with it;-))

K

K. Smith January 3rd 06 11:51 AM

E-Tec warning
 
James Hebert wrote:
In article , "K. Smith"
wrote:


wrote:



[material deleted]

I also like to see more data and like to know where the original post
came from.



Here the reference to "the original post" is to a comment that three
Evinrude E-TEC motors had blown up at a fishing tournament held in Lake
Erie around July 24, 2005

[Karen replies]

These are a few just for you:



http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/003712.html




Thanks for citing my website as a part of your effort to discredit the
E-TEC, but I am afraid the article you cited contains not one word of
any problems with the E-TEC motor at a fishing tournament in Lake Erie
around July 24, 2005. As a matter of fact, all the articles in the cited
thread were posted about a week before the fishing tournament held in
Lake Erie around July 24, 2005.

I don't see how they corroborate the initial claim about all of these
engines blowing up. I am local to that area and have not heard anything
about it.



You see James this is the problem with forums such as yours, in this
case you nopt onloy feel compelled to support your site you also support
the latest DFI experiment called E-Tec? You even try to claim another
forums posts "must" be wrong because you say so:-)

I did not say "your" forum mentioned blown E-Tecs although the poster
had asked for more data & where the original (blown E-tecs) post came
from, but his request wasn't limited to just that, it's patently clear
from the links where the information came from. Of course you'd never
allow that:-). I had derided the latest "upgrades" your site
conveniently gave material on them & clearly unbeknown to you much
mo-) People can read James even though you'd prefer they just
accepted your views without any review at all. Welcome to an open forum:-)

If you had decided to actually find out about this technology you would
already know why I say Ficht failed outright & to a lesser but still
unacceptable extent Optimax. You're correct I am an Ozzy & was well
familiar with Orbital long before Brunswick came into it. They'd been
trying to flog it for years prior as had Ficht but none of the real
engine people had taken it up & so far still haven't??? or do you say
otherwise??

Over some years I've explained in detail why & exactly how the DFIs
including Orbital Optimax would fail & sadly for many boaters, OMC
employees & unionists' pensions I was right. Of course as you promote &
boot lick the suppliers you don't wish to even acknowledge these facts.
You should read a truly "open" forum like here, then you'd know that the
OMC dealers were well aware of the defective nature of the Fichts &
continued to push them because they were getting up to 30% agg of
rebates & other sundry kickbacks on them. It was all well documented &
discussed here as the bankruptcy court dealt with OMC & the dealers
trying to get themselves onto the list of creditors for their so called
rebates:-)

A 101 so that even you may get a rubimentary understanding;

(i) The only way it seems a crankcase transferred 2 stroke can viably
get through the EPA rules is by running extremely lean mixtures at low
to medium revs. In the early days OMC dealers were claiming 40-1
mixtures but once the failures started all hard technical material was
withdrawn.

(ii) The Ficht style injector is nothing more than an impact pressure
pulse. There is no actual rail circulating fuel at any really high
pressure compared to say the Yamaha's up to 800 psi. Now the new owners
talk about injection pressures they're actually talking about the peak
pulse of pressure, after that each following shock wave is progressively
lower. Drop a stone into a full bucket of water. If you can search Deja
news/google groups you'll find where years ago I posted the pressure
graph that accompanied one of the early patent applications for Ficht.

(iii) The suggestion is that a combination of a very lean mixture, very
poor fuel atomisation caused by too low an injection pressure, prolonged
repeated firing of the spark plug & maintaining that mode of operation
up to reasonable levels of specific power might "sometimes" lead to
excessive heat buildup in the piston.

(iv) Here I originally suggested that this would lead to enough heat
building in the piston to cause potentially disastrous detonation &
indeed given the premises when they first came out, felt the failure
rate would be huge much higher than the later claimed 1 in 5, indeed it
was OMCs 1 in 5 claim that got me wondering how 4 out of 5 survived:-)

(v) The answer seems to be that when in lean mode there just isn't
enough fuel present to sustain detonation. This is a phenomenon well
known & understood in aero engines since the 1930s (& they never try to
run anything like a mixture of 40-1 if they did the engine just stops,
you can't in the normal sense ignite such a mixture). By repeatedly
firing the plug while the injector sprays fuel past (not at) it they can
get an ignition. In the early days OMC had the dealers telling people it
was like putting a match to a can of WD40 while you held the button down:-)
WD40 is mostly kero & like most jet engines that also run on kero you
can get a continuous ignition but don't try it with petrol:-)

(iv) The submission was & remains that in "some" circumstances (say a
large boat with a high top speed & therefore high prop pitch, being used
for long periods at the upper end of the lean burn mode?), it's then
that piston heat might become extreme. This possibility I say is
admitted by the latest fixes special high melting point alloy in the
pistons & special high temp oil why?? if there aren't any piston temp
issues???

(v) If & it's an "if" one of the pistons gets even a little hot (say any
point on it or the rings being over 250C) certainly then the situation
has the potential for pre ignition once the mixture is quickly returned
to "normal". i.e.the suggestion is that as the engine changes from lean
burn mode to full mixture & a single firing of the plug, the sudden
influx of fuel might get pre ignited by a possibly overly hot piston &
then the heat/extreme pressure combination might send the particular
cylinder into full detonation.

(vi) It's also suggested the oiling is a part of the problem & also
maybe a part of the proof of what I have said, because again excess oil
possibly gets baked behind the rings? & then possibly more heat?
possibly more pre-ignition? possibly more detonation is a risk? The
proof part is that they have greatly reduced the quantum of oil
available in all the so called DFI 2 strokes but again why?? & why the
special super expensive dealer only hight temp oils?? again it's
suggested this is support for the position put when Ficht was new.

So James if you've read this & even partly got a handle on it, now go &
re read the link I posted to your site, do you see the issue with the so
called "upgrades"??? also ask yourself why do different boats, different
props etc seem to experience the "roughness" at different engine
speeds??? Given that the spruikers will not give any real technical
material & the dealers certainly have none, then I'm happy to use your
site's material in support of my position.

So again just for clarity: I didn't allege your site said there were
blown up E-Tecs because you clearly would have none of that:-) But I did
note the OMC Ficht like "upgrades" were back & I was happy to link to
you showing the symptoms as these engine get to or near the mode change
point & the mixture is reverting back to normal, maybe just maybe on a
very hot piston????

No need to thank me for publicising your site for you indeed I'm glad to
& hope to again.

K


J Merrill January 4th 06 03:05 AM

E-Tec warning
 
"K. Smith" wrote A 101 so that even you may get a
rubimentary understanding;

(i) The only way it seems a crankcase transferred 2 stroke can viably
get through the EPA rules is by running extremely lean mixtures at low
to medium revs. In the early days OMC dealers were claiming 40-1
mixtures but once the failures started all hard technical material was
withdrawn.

Mixture has nothing to do with meeting the EPA requirements in any direct
sense.
The problem with the conventional ported two stroke outboard is emissions of
unburned hydrocarbons. Since the incoming fuel/air charge is used to
displace the exhauste gases. Approx. 15% of the fuel/air mix passes in thru
the intake port and out thru the exhaust port without the benefit of having
been in the cylinder during a combustion phase.
Hence ways to significantly reduce the amount of unburned hydrocarbons in
the exhaust
a) seperate the airflow/scavenging from the fuel.
b) switch to a four stroke process where the piston scavenges the cylinder.
c) post burn the unburnt fuel in a catalytic converter.






K. Smith January 4th 06 07:46 AM

E-Tec warning
 
J Merrill wrote:
"K. Smith" wrote A 101 so that even you may get a
rubimentary understanding;

(i) The only way it seems a crankcase transferred 2 stroke can viably
get through the EPA rules is by running extremely lean mixtures at low
to medium revs. In the early days OMC dealers were claiming 40-1
mixtures but once the failures started all hard technical material was
withdrawn.


Mixture has nothing to do with meeting the EPA requirements in any direct
sense.
The problem with the conventional ported two stroke outboard is emissions of
unburned hydrocarbons. Since the incoming fuel/air charge is used to
displace the exhauste gases. Approx. 15% of the fuel/air mix passes in thru
the intake port and out thru the exhaust port without the benefit of having
been in the cylinder during a combustion phase.
Hence ways to significantly reduce the amount of unburned hydrocarbons in
the exhaust
a) seperate the airflow/scavenging from the fuel.
b) switch to a four stroke process where the piston scavenges the cylinder.
c) post burn the unburnt fuel in a catalytic converter.






Yes I agree with all you say, but I did say "viable" in the sense that
by the time you make a crankcase transferred engine clean it's as
complex heavy & expensive as a proper 4 stroke would have been in the
first place:-)

The Optimaxes are a classic as far as mechanical complexity being used
to claim success with a "simple" 2 stroke.

K

James Hebert January 5th 06 07:05 AM

E-Tec warning
 
In article , "K. Smith"
wrote:

James Hebert wrote:
In article , "K. Smith"
wrote:


wrote:



[material deleted]

I also like to see more data and like to know where the original post
came from.



Here the reference to "the original post" is to a comment that three
Evinrude E-TEC motors had blown up at a fishing tournament held in Lake
Erie around July 24, 2005

[Karen replies]

These are a few just for you:



http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/003712.html




Thanks for citing my website as a part of your effort to discredit the
E-TEC, but I am afraid the article you cited contains not one word of
any problems with the E-TEC motor at a fishing tournament in Lake Erie
around July 24, 2005. As a matter of fact, all the articles in the cited
thread were posted about a week before the fishing tournament held in
Lake Erie around July 24, 2005.

I don't see how they corroborate the initial claim about all of these
engines blowing up. I am local to that area and have not heard anything
about it.



You see James this is the problem with forums such as yours, in this
case you nopt onloy feel compelled to support your site you also support
the latest DFI experiment called E-Tec? You even try to claim another
forums posts "must" be wrong because you say so:-)


There are many articles on my website which present information on the
E-TEC. Some report problems and their resolution. Others report no
problems. The content is not managed to present only one side or the
other. Participants report how _their_ E-TEC motors are working. That's
all.

The point I was making is that the article you cited contained no
mention of the incident at a Detroit River/Lake Erie fishing tournament.
I think it was misleading to cite the article you mentioned in
connection with the fishing tournament motors.


I did not say "your" forum mentioned blown E-Tecs although the poster
had asked for more data & where the original (blown E-tecs) post came
from, but his request wasn't limited to just that, it's patently clear
from the links where the information came from. Of course you'd never
allow that:-). I had derided the latest "upgrades" your site
conveniently gave material on them & clearly unbeknown to you much
mo-) People can read James even though you'd prefer they just
accepted your views without any review at all. Welcome to an open forum:-)


Because I actually do look over the articles that we carry on the
website, I often give some scrutiny to authors who appear suddenly with
tales of horror about their engines. Here is a good example of one of
these supposed E-TEC horror stories:

An article was submitted for publication in which the author claimed he
had purchased an E-TEC motor which subsequently failed after very short
use. This motor was allegedly replaced, and the replacement failed
even faster. This author claimed to be from Ontario. A check of the web
server's logs showed the article had been posted from a computer in
southern Europe. The email address provided was bogus. Messages to the
author's mail exchanger were all refused with "unknown recipient"
replies. Based on simple checking like this, I refused to publish this
horror story of E-TEC motors blowing up. There was very little evidence
that this was a legitimate report. Further, the fellow writing all of
this never showed up again nor contacted me to complain about it being
removed.

By my guess, this same fellow having this same sort of sport by
inventing these tales of blown up motors also posted to another on-line
forums. His article was carried for a few days, but after requests for
more information, such a serial numbers and a dealer name, went
unanswered, the game was up and that article wase also removed by the
administrator of that other moderated forums.

I am afraid these days it is a simple matter for people to anonymously
submit total falsehoods and have them widely circulated. Perhaps this is
the case here, with the "open" nature of USENET. You're citing a
incident in which you report three E-TEC motors have failed, yet you are
12,000 miles away from where it happened. I live about 25 miles away
from where it happened and have never heard a word of it.

I spent a few minutes searching using GOOGLE and I could not find any
mention of an E-TEC engine failing at that fishing tournament, except
for the single report you have cited.

My preference is very strong for first-hand accounts of events where
very new and very expensive engines blow up. There is a lot of dock talk
and stories of friends of a friend, and so on, but a real first-hand
account is much more reliable. So rather than you (fourth-hand) citing
some anonymous fellow (third-hand) reporting on something he heard
(second-hand) about what happened to an angler at fishing tournament
(first-hand), the story would be much more compelling if we could just
hear it right from the guy who owned the motor. The problem is that
these first-hand accounts seem to be much harder to come by than
recitation of second- or third-hand information. Next thing you know
we'll have someone citing this thread (fifth-hand) to prove that three
E-TEC motors blew up.


If you had decided to actually find out about this technology you would
already know why I say Ficht failed outright & to a lesser but still
unacceptable extent Optimax. You're correct I am an Ozzy & was well
familiar with Orbital long before Brunswick came into it. They'd been
trying to flog it for years prior as had Ficht but none of the real
engine people had taken it up & so far still haven't??? or do you say
otherwise??


Brunswick does seem to be perhaps on the verge of giving up on the
OptiMax. They have spent a significant amount of money ("millions")
giving customers replacement power heads for all the OptiMax engines
that blew up in the field. But that water over the dam, I think the real
reason Brunswick is moving away from OptiMax is to push Verado. If they
had not developed Verado (and spent all that money doing it), they would
probably be content with OptiMax. They do seem to have worked the bugs
out of the OptiMax--at least they don't have to give away so many free
replacement power heads.

By the way, a good measure of how many warranty failures there are for
an engine is the availability of "factory refurbished" engines. In the
case of OptiMax there were droves of them for sale from Mercury. That
should have said something.


Over some years I've explained in detail why & exactly how the DFIs
including Orbital Optimax would fail & sadly for many boaters, OMC
employees & unionists' pensions I was right. Of course as you promote &
boot lick the suppliers you don't wish to even acknowledge these facts.
You should read a truly "open" forum like here, then you'd know that the
OMC dealers were well aware of the defective nature of the Fichts &
continued to push them because they were getting up to 30% agg of
rebates & other sundry kickbacks on them. It was all well documented &
discussed here as the bankruptcy court dealt with OMC & the dealers
trying to get themselves onto the list of creditors for their so called
rebates:-)


[the usual story on two-stroke DFI's inevitable doom deleted]

So James if you've read this & even partly got a handle on it, now go &
re read the link I posted to your site, do you see the issue with the so
called "upgrades"??? also ask yourself why do different boats, different
props etc seem to experience the "roughness" at different engine
speeds??? Given that the spruikers will not give any real technical
material & the dealers certainly have none, then I'm happy to use your
site's material in support of my position.


I have read your analysis many times. It does seem to have some sound
reasoning, but I find that it applies to just about all two-strokes. In
particular, I find most all outboards are running quite rough in the
1,500 to 2,500 RPM range. None of them seem to delight in pushing a boat
around at that speed, as it is often a speed where the boat is not on
plane and the engine is really struggling. The nature of each boat and
the propeller chosen makes for different ranges where these rough
problems are more pronounced.

Generally I find the best wisdom to be: if the engine runs very rough at
a certain speed, don't run it at that speed. It is probably trying to
tell you something.

One thing that modern engine controllers have done is to provide the
manufacturer and his designers with more information about the speeds at
which the customers actually run their engines. This feedback is often
used to make tweaks in the engine firmware to work out problems.

I do not find the notion that software embedded in an engine's
controller might have to be upgraded to be proof of something being
intrinsically wrong with the entire engine design and combustion
process. On the contrary, I think that having the ability to easily
upgrade the software is something of a plus. If there are refinements in
the software which make the old engine run better, why not take
advantage of them?

So again just for clarity: I didn't allege your site said there were
blown up E-Tecs because you clearly would have none of that:-)


Actually, there are several long threads which discuss problems with
E-TEC motors which resulted in the power head being replaced under
warranty after a fairly short time, but the one you cited was not one of
them. So, you see, there are both sides of the story available.

But I did
note the OMC Ficht like "upgrades" were back & I was happy to link to
you showing the symptoms as these engine get to or near the mode change
point & the mixture is reverting back to normal, maybe just maybe on a
very hot piston????


So far I would not characterize these firmware updates as being
"Ficht-like". I believe that to fix problems with Ficht engines more was
required than just new firmware. From what I have learned, there have
been almost no mechanical changes in the E-TEC, although there was a
batch of motors which seemed to have gotten out of the factory with a
water cooling passage that needed to be drilled out--a bit of sloppy
manufacturing, yes, but not evidence of the inevitable doom of E-TEC.

No need to thank me for publicising your site for you indeed I'm glad to
& hope to again.

K


K. Smith January 5th 06 09:37 AM

E-Tec warning
 
James Hebert wrote:
In article , "K. Smith"
wrote:


James Hebert wrote:

In article , "K. Smith"
wrote:



wrote:


[material deleted]


I also like to see more data and like to know where the original post
came from.


Here the reference to "the original post" is to a comment that three
Evinrude E-TEC motors had blown up at a fishing tournament held in Lake
Erie around July 24, 2005

[Karen replies]


These are a few just for you:


http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/003712.html



Thanks for citing my website as a part of your effort to discredit the
E-TEC, but I am afraid the article you cited contains not one word of
any problems with the E-TEC motor at a fishing tournament in Lake Erie
around July 24, 2005. As a matter of fact, all the articles in the cited
thread were posted about a week before the fishing tournament held in
Lake Erie around July 24, 2005.

I don't see how they corroborate the initial claim about all of these
engines blowing up. I am local to that area and have not heard anything
about it.



You see James this is the problem with forums such as yours, in this
case you nopt onloy feel compelled to support your site you also support
the latest DFI experiment called E-Tec? You even try to claim another
forums posts "must" be wrong because you say so:-)



There are many articles on my website which present information on the
E-TEC. Some report problems and their resolution. Others report no
problems. The content is not managed to present only one side or the
other. Participants report how _their_ E-TEC motors are working. That's
all.

The point I was making is that the article you cited contained no
mention of the incident at a Detroit River/Lake Erie fishing tournament.
I think it was misleading to cite the article you mentioned in
connection with the fishing tournament motors.



I did not say "your" forum mentioned blown E-Tecs although the poster
had asked for more data & where the original (blown E-tecs) post came
from, but his request wasn't limited to just that, it's patently clear
from the links where the information came from. Of course you'd never
allow that:-). I had derided the latest "upgrades" your site
conveniently gave material on them & clearly unbeknown to you much
mo-) People can read James even though you'd prefer they just
accepted your views without any review at all. Welcome to an open forum:-)



Because I actually do look over the articles that we carry on the
website, I often give some scrutiny to authors who appear suddenly with
tales of horror about their engines. Here is a good example of one of
these supposed E-TEC horror stories:

An article was submitted for publication in which the author claimed he
had purchased an E-TEC motor which subsequently failed after very short
use. This motor was allegedly replaced, and the replacement failed
even faster. This author claimed to be from Ontario. A check of the web
server's logs showed the article had been posted from a computer in
southern Europe. The email address provided was bogus. Messages to the
author's mail exchanger were all refused with "unknown recipient"
replies. Based on simple checking like this, I refused to publish this
horror story of E-TEC motors blowing up. There was very little evidence
that this was a legitimate report. Further, the fellow writing all of
this never showed up again nor contacted me to complain about it being
removed.

By my guess, this same fellow having this same sort of sport by
inventing these tales of blown up motors also posted to another on-line
forums. His article was carried for a few days, but after requests for
more information, such a serial numbers and a dealer name, went
unanswered, the game was up and that article wase also removed by the
administrator of that other moderated forums.

I am afraid these days it is a simple matter for people to anonymously
submit total falsehoods and have them widely circulated. Perhaps this is
the case here, with the "open" nature of USENET. You're citing a
incident in which you report three E-TEC motors have failed, yet you are
12,000 miles away from where it happened. I live about 25 miles away
from where it happened and have never heard a word of it.

I spent a few minutes searching using GOOGLE and I could not find any
mention of an E-TEC engine failing at that fishing tournament, except
for the single report you have cited.

My preference is very strong for first-hand accounts of events where
very new and very expensive engines blow up. There is a lot of dock talk
and stories of friends of a friend, and so on, but a real first-hand
account is much more reliable. So rather than you (fourth-hand) citing
some anonymous fellow (third-hand) reporting on something he heard
(second-hand) about what happened to an angler at fishing tournament
(first-hand), the story would be much more compelling if we could just
hear it right from the guy who owned the motor. The problem is that
these first-hand accounts seem to be much harder to come by than
recitation of second- or third-hand information. Next thing you know
we'll have someone citing this thread (fifth-hand) to prove that three
E-TEC motors blew up.



If you had decided to actually find out about this technology you would
already know why I say Ficht failed outright & to a lesser but still
unacceptable extent Optimax. You're correct I am an Ozzy & was well
familiar with Orbital long before Brunswick came into it. They'd been
trying to flog it for years prior as had Ficht but none of the real
engine people had taken it up & so far still haven't??? or do you say
otherwise??



Brunswick does seem to be perhaps on the verge of giving up on the
OptiMax. They have spent a significant amount of money ("millions")
giving customers replacement power heads for all the OptiMax engines
that blew up in the field. But that water over the dam, I think the real
reason Brunswick is moving away from OptiMax is to push Verado. If they
had not developed Verado (and spent all that money doing it), they would
probably be content with OptiMax. They do seem to have worked the bugs
out of the OptiMax--at least they don't have to give away so many free
replacement power heads.

By the way, a good measure of how many warranty failures there are for
an engine is the availability of "factory refurbished" engines. In the
case of OptiMax there were droves of them for sale from Mercury. That
should have said something.



Over some years I've explained in detail why & exactly how the DFIs
including Orbital Optimax would fail & sadly for many boaters, OMC
employees & unionists' pensions I was right. Of course as you promote &
boot lick the suppliers you don't wish to even acknowledge these facts.
You should read a truly "open" forum like here, then you'd know that the
OMC dealers were well aware of the defective nature of the Fichts &
continued to push them because they were getting up to 30% agg of
rebates & other sundry kickbacks on them. It was all well documented &
discussed here as the bankruptcy court dealt with OMC & the dealers
trying to get themselves onto the list of creditors for their so called
rebates:-)



[the usual story on two-stroke DFI's inevitable doom deleted]


So James if you've read this & even partly got a handle on it, now go &
re read the link I posted to your site, do you see the issue with the so
called "upgrades"??? also ask yourself why do different boats, different
props etc seem to experience the "roughness" at different engine
speeds??? Given that the spruikers will not give any real technical
material & the dealers certainly have none, then I'm happy to use your
site's material in support of my position.



I have read your analysis many times. It does seem to have some sound
reasoning, but I find that it applies to just about all two-strokes. In
particular, I find most all outboards are running quite rough in the
1,500 to 2,500 RPM range. None of them seem to delight in pushing a boat
around at that speed, as it is often a speed where the boat is not on
plane and the engine is really struggling. The nature of each boat and
the propeller chosen makes for different ranges where these rough
problems are more pronounced.

Generally I find the best wisdom to be: if the engine runs very rough at
a certain speed, don't run it at that speed. It is probably trying to
tell you something.

One thing that modern engine controllers have done is to provide the
manufacturer and his designers with more information about the speeds at
which the customers actually run their engines. This feedback is often
used to make tweaks in the engine firmware to work out problems.

I do not find the notion that software embedded in an engine's
controller might have to be upgraded to be proof of something being
intrinsically wrong with the entire engine design and combustion
process. On the contrary, I think that having the ability to easily
upgrade the software is something of a plus. If there are refinements in
the software which make the old engine run better, why not take
advantage of them?


So again just for clarity: I didn't allege your site said there were
blown up E-Tecs because you clearly would have none of that:-)



Actually, there are several long threads which discuss problems with
E-TEC motors which resulted in the power head being replaced under
warranty after a fairly short time, but the one you cited was not one of
them. So, you see, there are both sides of the story available.


But I did
note the OMC Ficht like "upgrades" were back & I was happy to link to
you showing the symptoms as these engine get to or near the mode change
point & the mixture is reverting back to normal, maybe just maybe on a
very hot piston????



So far I would not characterize these firmware updates as being
"Ficht-like". I believe that to fix problems with Ficht engines more was
required than just new firmware. From what I have learned, there have
been almost no mechanical changes in the E-TEC, although there was a
batch of motors which seemed to have gotten out of the factory with a
water cooling passage that needed to be drilled out--a bit of sloppy
manufacturing, yes, but not evidence of the inevitable doom of E-TEC.


No need to thank me for publicising your site for you indeed I'm glad to
& hope to again.

K



Firstly thanks for the reasoned reply James, & although I didn't agree
with your view on my posting of a link to your page in the premises I'm
happy to apologise if it upset you & do so unreservedly. I'll be much
clearer if I link to your pages in the future.

I agree Optimax is dead & again we probably disagree over the reasons,
however so long as they don't ruin more boaters enjoyment off into the
future who cares why they're going.

As for the E-Tec stuff I think we just plain disagree but not as much as
I expected actually, it seems you are like most boaters happy to accept
an old tech carbed 2 stroke OB will fail if a cyl is fed a lean
mixture?? my position remains that the very same thing dealers have made
millions upon millions fixing & happily explaining the cause as "gone
lean at power" is the reason the Fichts & I say E-tecs are at risk.

I'll be brave to suggest that the dealers or boat manufacturers
packaging them are being given more than generous (read 30% & over as
the ficht dealers demanded & mostly got) rebates etc to do so. So as
with Ficht we'll never truly know the situation because there's no more
dangerous a place to get than between a dealer/boat packager & a dollar:-)

As with Ficht I'll make my detailed predictions & give the reasons for
same then we'll see how it all goes. Given the higher temp pistons, the
treated bores, the special oil, the better fastenings etc etc I honestly
don't think as many E-Tecs will fail but enough that the technology is
doomed, just as all previous attempts at lean burn engines have been.

All the best

K


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