What is the deal with these motors, people sort of run away form some of them. Was it just a few years or what.....information would be helpful.
What is the deal with these motors, people sort of run away form some of them. Was it just a few years or what.....information would be helpful.
Research the Mercury OptiMax then come back and ask ther question.
The 97-98 Ficht had some major issues with quality control carbon build up to the point of power head failures. Those years OMC also had tons of lower unit gears fail due to improper hardening done by the company who made them for OMC.
The problems were mostly with the 150-225. The 99-2000 were much better but still had some minor issues. The 2001 and up were pretty much trouble free. I beleive OMC was bought by BRP and that is when they got better.
Mercury 3.0l 225EFI
2001, 0T264057
250XB Fuel ECU
300PM ING ECU
Lightened Flywheel
63cc heads
Boyesen 2stage reeds
Cowl mod
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NoSloStratos »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The 97-98 Ficht had some major issues with quality control carbon build up to the point of power head failures. Those years OMC also had tons of lower unit gears fail due to improper hardening done by the company who made them for OMC.
The problems were mostly with the 150-225. The 99-2000 were much better but still had some minor issues. The 2001 and up were pretty much trouble free. I beleive OMC was bought by BRP and that is when they got better.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Thank you for a "Straight Answer"
I think it was just the 150-175 that had the major amount of issues. The 200-225 weren't as bad. Witht hat being said there are still 1997-1998 150-225's running strong to this day. I know there were a bunch of updates made, not sure what they are but as ChampioNman has said the same issues with the early Opti pops!
If it wasn't for OMC going after the FICHT technology for 2 strokes ALL of us might be running 4 strokes today! This is what I heard but it does make sense. Everyone was on the 4 stroke wagon and OMC said I don't think so! So did they fail....I would have to say no.
Joe Galada - Tamaqua, PA
2004 Ranger 521VX - Yamaha 250 SHO
the biggest drama is the resale of the Motor, because of it's reputation (mostly unfounded) if you own one of these Motors, then you almost cannot give it away, but there is thousands of them still running very well today, I guess in some ways, they were just way ahead of their time as far as technology goes! and as is the same as E-tecs now, they are the Motor most argue about.
OH and I must add it was indeed mainly a couple of V6 models that had dramas, the V4 (90 and 115HP) performed as they should have from day 1, they did not suffer from any common failures.
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