Revisiting Tims thread re 2.1 L Merc 115

[McGillicuddy]

Thread revival from last August... Has anyone opted for this motor yet? Tim???
I'm really tempted to re-power the Seafari 20 with this choice. Its about 360 lbs and appears to get 5 mpg and 4 mpg @ roughly 20mph and 35 mph... Think i could keep my controls and props, making it more intriguing. 4-s silence at speed?

Until recently I've been 2-s d.i. or die with short looks at zuke 90 and 140. I think with etec weight on the rise and merc offering a 4s lighter than an opti, even with oil, mercs new 2.1 L is a game changer.

Com'on Terry of the 3 Lions, what say you 2-s faithful, does the torque curve allow consideration? What say you Bushwacker - it appears the valve lash issue is "history"...have I lost my way?

Bigshrimpin', oh Grand Pooh-bah of the phantom black, how doth thy opine?

[72potter20]

I'm 95% sure I'll be hanging one of these on my 20 project very soon. Already received a quote from a buddy at promarine here in st pete. I'm nearing completion on my project and this will be the last step

[Terry England]

Originally Posted by McGillicuddy

Thread revival from last August... Has anyone opted for this motor?

Com'on Terry of the 3 Lions, what say you 2-s faithful, does the torque curve allow consideration? ..have I lost my way?

Gillie my friend, I am a not a good person to ask about the "Black" motors. You see Neptune has placd a hex on me which prevents me from getting back to port under my own power any two times consecutively with one of the Fond-du-Lac Wonders. You see as a child of the 50's I had the "Black" motors back when they were "Green" and only went forward. They were real fast but I could never mow enough lawns to keep them out of the shop so that actually greatly reduce the number of opportunities to be towed home. Then Mr. Keikauffer came out with white ones. They were bigger, swept back and had F-N-R on the side but still ate coils like Michael Moore eats donuts and I wore out three lawn mowers one summer trying to keep the cash flow going for the chance to be towed in every third trip out. This was the formative part of my life and it is partly the reason I am the way I am. Finally I determined the Nordic name "Johnson" might be more pleasing to Neptune than the name Keikauffer, which in Austrian actually means "get towed home". So when I was in high school I finally bought a Johnson 28 Ski-Twin and bolted it on a 15' skiff. Well it just ran and ran and ran - camping on spoil islands, skiing, Snook fishing at Egmont Key. Put the key in and go anytime I wanted to and brought me home everytime. I forgot to put the oil in once and seezed it pulling a skier. I put the oil in the gas can real fast, like that wa going to help and in a few minutes I touched the key to see if I could limp home. It lit right up so we kept right on skiing - 10 years later it was still running strong when I traded it in on a Welcraft 17 with twin 50 horse Johnsons. They never missed a beat and one only dropped about a thousand RPMs when I leaned it out and put a hole in the piston. Bored it out stuck a pistion in it and kept on truck'in. They brought me back to the dock every time too. I was doing some work on a marina in the 70's when I saw a 20' Safari - White hull, white deck. I was in love. I did notice that it had a Mercrusier in it and thought to myself Neptune don't give a dang what I'm runn'in and he's got plent of other mariners to worry with now. Well he was "layin for me". I pushed more of my friends boats home on the end of a rope than I can imagine. I finally ran out of friends! Nobody would go Buddy Boat'in with me because we never got home until 10 PM. I was repeating the full band width of curse words I
had gleened with the Green and White Merc's in my formative years. Gimbal bearings, bellows, trim cylinders, block cracks, shift triggers, rusting pullies and alternator brackets. I addition to working 48 hours a week, i had to take on a part time job mowing lawns again just to get the dang thing out of the shop for a week or two before the Black Curse struck. So the deal is scar tissue lasts for a long time and I've had too good of luck with the White motors to go foolin' around with success. I know plenty of people like you, Don V, Sandy, Ken and Sulli who have had exceptional service from the Black Mauraders, but they "ran me off" decades ago. Ever since I had the White ones I just mow my own lawn.

[NoBones]

Whew, You two just wore my ass out.... sip, sip....glug, glug... CHUG!

Gillie, just get back to the docks and unload the chit I have been waiting on for
the last 3 weeks....

Terry, break out the bong and take long slow hits... That should
calm you down..

Once you go black you never go back!

[DonV]

Actually Ken I thought the 'ol Mercury saying was, "they're black and don't want to work"!

I've only had one, which is still hanging on the back of my old clunker 23'er, however it's treated me and the major gas companies quite well. It was one of those $$$ deals I could not pass up when I bought it.

[Terry England]

Gillie, Sometimes the White ones are Blue -

[gofastsandman]

I like Crackers.

When did I become a Merc guy?

Gotta get me a new hat.

[McGillicuddy]

Dang, thats a nice looking seafari.

[Bigshrimpin]

Gillie - They look like a nice choice . . . lots of the same design features of the 150. I'd go for it if you are gonna keep the Seafari for a while.

Terry - It's funny (maybe not rational) . . . but I feel the same way about Yamaha and their use of gotcha metal parts i.e. "planned obsolescence". One rotten shift shaft ruined me on a 1989 motor. I'm sure folks with Yamaha 225/250 gut rot and speedy sleeve cranks or yamaha 350 Frisbee flywheels feel the same way. Do you have any pics of the wellcraft with twins?



Only time will tell if the newer Merc 4 strokes are built to last. One thing for sure it that they are not the same "dockbuster" design from the late 50's.

[Bushwacker]

Originally Posted by McGillicuddy

Thread revival from last August... Has anyone opted for this motor yet? Tim???
I'm really tempted to re-power the Seafari 20 with this choice. Its about 360 lbs and appears to get 5 mpg and 4 mpg @ roughly 20mph and 35 mph... Think i could keep my controls and props, making it more intriguing. 4-s silence at speed?

Until recently I've been 2-s d.i. or die with short looks at zuke 90 and 140. I think with etec weight on the rise and merc offering a 4s lighter than an opti, even with oil, mercs new 2.1 L is a game changer.

Com'on Terry of the 3 Lions, what say you 2-s faithful, does the torque curve allow consideration? What say you Bushwacker - it appears the valve lash issue is "history"...have I lost my way?

Bigshrimpin', oh Grand Pooh-bah of the phantom black, how doth thy opine?

Gillie, I agree that the new Merc certainly looks very competitive on engine weight now that the V-4 E-TEC has gained a lot of weight. One really needs to know a lot of technical details to do a good comparison, like how does the Merc lower unit compare to the robust V-6 lower unit they appear to have put on the newer V-4 E-TECs, but haven't been able to find much tech info on that Merc 115. The Merc web site only has basic stuff like weight, displacement, gear ratio, etc.

The weak link on all 4-stroke motors is burned exhaust valves and seats, and to a lesser extent, the exhaust manifold (corrosion issues). If anyone is building one that's really bullet proof, it'll have sodium filled exhaust valves and stellite (cobalt alloy) material for the valve seats, plus some very good alloy for the pistons. Nickle or cobalt alloy exhaust valves would also very durable, so that's info I'd want to know if I was gonna buy one! I suspect some of the supercharged Verados may have stuff like that because of it's extremely high specific power output (HP/cu. in.), but I doubt that you'll find expensive aircraft quality hardware in a cost-competitive outboard.

I ran across this thread on the 115 E-TEC vs. 115 Merc 4-S that might answer some of your questions. Forum member Huey is a dealer/tech in Sidney, Australia that's been selling both Evinrudes and Mercs for 40-50 years and seems to really know his stuff. He says that a 4-stroke needs to have 30-40% more displacement to match the torque of a motor having a power stroke on every revolution, so by that measure the new Merc needs to be about 2.2-2.4L to match the 1.7L E-TEC. I've seen a video of a BRP "identical boat tug-of-war" between the new Merc 150 4-S and the 150 E-TEC, and while the E-TEC didn't pull the Merc completely underwater like it did the 150 Yamaha, it still pulled it around pretty good, so I suspect that Huey is right, the new Merc is certainly a step in the right direction but it needs a bit more displacement to match the E-TEC's mid-range punch. As for durability, the E-TECs are well established by now and seem to have a very good record if installed and set up right, and BRP has an excellent record of standing behind them, even beyond the warranty period. Fr. Frank most definitely knows how to maintain a motor, but the 3 fuel system failures on his Opti and some horror stories documented by BoatUS on lack of customer support on the early Bravo 3 Drives would give me a little less confidence on the black motors.