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Posts: 123
| Who has these size motors? Or who has had had both? Are they both pretty good on gas? I don't wan't to underpower a boat. Have any of you guys underpowered a boat? |
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Posts: 1638
Location: Minnesota | I have a skeeter mx 1825 with a F 150 Yamaha. Too speed 50.8 mph I run around 40 mph most of the time.i fish smaller lakes so I don't use the big motor much.but when I fish Vermilion I'll burn a round 8 to 10 gallons a day depending on where I'm staying and how much running I do. |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | never, ever underpower a boat and for fuel consumption in the HP range you are talking it's from soup to nuts and then as stated above makes a difference how you drive. i have a 175 Mercury 2-stroke Pro-XS and it uses a third the fuel that my old XRI did, but i would imagine the F175 (i think they make one now) and a 175 Suzuki 4-stroke would burn even less than this motor. new motors are pretty good these days but they are still outboard motors so you're not driving a prius around ... unless you have a new Evinrude ... that stupid thing looks like a Prius ... or worse. |
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Posts: 153
| I had a 175 Suzuki on my 189 Triton and if I ran 38 mph I would get between 5.3 to 5.8 miles per gallon, depending on the load. The 250 Yamaha Four Stroke on my 2015 Larson 2020FX gets about 3.2 mpg at the same speed. Going to a bigger boat is not necessarly a good thing. But I do echo what has been said may times, never under power a boat
Edited by Dan Klis 2/17/2015 1:39 PM
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Wait a minute.
Define 'under power'. There are many models out there that run absolutely flawlessly with less than the maximum HP strapped to the transom. Hole shot, handling in rough water, and performance is excellent. Go from the mid range power to a V6; all one gains is top end, and one may lose some advantages of the mid range outboard...like weight and the ability to troll with the main engine successfully.
'Under powering' a boat means powering it with an outboard that will not meet performance expectations, not that one has to buy the maximum HP that boat will take. |
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Posts: 410
Location: one foot over the line | Yes they do. |
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Posts: 134
| It depends on the boat. In my experience an aluminum boat will handle being "underpowered" (less than max) than a comparable length fiberglass boat. strictly HP talking a 150 on a 16' boat is going to get better mileage than a 150 on a 21' boat. Will a 150 on a 21' boat move it? yes. will it be efficient? maybe. Will your buddy with the same boat and a 250 go faster? yes. Better holeshot? yes. will the 250 get better mileage? negligible, but it will get close to the same if not better at a higher rate of speed. The trolling thing unknown? I reference speed, because "less time traveling=more time fishing!" MAX POWER! |
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Posts: 437
| I agree with Steve but it depends what is meant by the term "underpowered" by the OP. My 185 (19') Tournament Sport boat is rated for 200HP. I have a 150 Suzuki on it. The 150 is the same block, bore and stroke as the 175 Suzuki. Only difference is some ignition mapping. This is the same/similar for other brands.
My 150 launches my boat out of the water even when fully loaded. Sure, I could have spent $5000 plus more for a larger motor, but if they are propped right you can have great performance from less than max HP. I was getting over 50MPH with a taller prop on my boat, but it wouldn't troll down real well so I opted for one size lower. Now its 46MPH and with a much better holeshot.
Mileage? Not sure. I don't have all the fancy smart gauges etc, but I know I use far less fuel than my buddy who has a 200HP Yamaha on his 18' Champion. His is a little faster, but not significant. He uses about 10 gallons more fuel than I do on the same trip we do for a week in Canada. That's a lot when we have to haul it all in the boat and carry that extra weight since there are no gas stations within 20 miles of the island we are camping on. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Hole shot is a function of a spinning the correct prop, not HP. |
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Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | sworrall - 2/20/2015 3:56 PM
Hole shot is a function of a spinning the correct prop, not HP.
That's interesting. Do you mean correct prop in general, or correct prop for hole shot alone?
Taking it to a more extreme example, hole shots in a maxed out console always seem a lot quicker than the hole shot in a maxed out tiller.
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Posts: 271
Location: davis,IL | The "correct" prop generally speaking should give you a decent holeshot with a respectable top end. But one must remember that is only a part of the picture. Boat type, hull configuration, proper loading ( weight in the proper places) are major factors also. You can have the fastest hull and the biggest motor, if you place your gear, batteries, etc. all in one spot, performance will suffer. The load should be distributed correctly for the type of hull used, to find the correct loading usually requires a little experimenting moving things around to see what works best. But generally heavier loads will require more horsepower to get decent all around performance. |
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Posts: 337
Location: Watersmeet, Michigan | You don't mention brand of engine or boat model, but Mercury does have performance data for their engines mounted on various boats. https://www.mercurymarine.com/en/us/performance-tests/outboard/
Fr. K |
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Posts: 106
| muskyfishing89 - 2/17/2015 1:20 AM
Who has these size motors? Or who has had had both? Are they both pretty good on gas? I don't wan't to underpower a boat. Have any of you guys underpowered a boat?
It would help if you asked about a specific boat and motor(s), because some boat perform very well with less than max HP some others don't.
I did have an underpowered boat. It was a 1991 Lund 1700 Pro V with a 50 hp Yamaha 2-stroke. It was rated for 60 hp, but was underpowered with the 50 because with 3 people in it if there was enough wind to make 2-3' waves it would not get up on plane going into the wind. Other than that it was a great motor and really good boat.
I was looking to re-power it in 2004, to get more power not because the Yami quit, but instead I bought a Ranger 618 Tiller with a 90 Johnzuki.
The Ranger was no race boat, but it was definitely not underpowered. With any load it would get on plane quick enough and had a top speed of 33-36 depending on load.
My current boat, a Skeeter MX 1825 with 150 Yamaha 4-stroke, is certainly not underpowered either. 5 seconds or less to plane and ~50 mph top speed. It is rated for 200, and with a 200 4-stroke they do about 54, with the 200 2-stroke they do about 57. To me the extra few mph isn't worth the cost.
As to gas mileage, on most boats you will not see any real difference between a 150 and a 200. According to Yamaha a MX 1825 with a 150 4-stroke will get just over 5 mpg at about 30 mph and about 3 mpg at 50 mph. |
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Posts: 153
| I have a 115 merc on the back of my tuffy and its rated for a 150 and it gets out of the hole jut fine and planes out beautifully at not even 3/4 throttle she dose 30 mph the right prop makes the difference
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Posts: 410
Location: With my son on the water | From my own personal experience I had a rig with a motor in the mid size and with a lighter load it worked fine. However when I started fishing with two more guys my hole shot was terrible so I reduce the prop size to correct the hole shot. Smaller props need to run a higher RPM to maintain the same speed as even a prop one size larger. On that rig when I did that the reduced prop size/increased RPM reduce my gas mileage significantly.
Now if you look at the torque charts of say the old Merc Optimax (75,90,115). It is the same block for each motor, the only difference is the fuel mapping. On those three motors the low end torque is exactly the same so the hole shot will be the same, the only difference will be top end. This is very common with motors that use the same block.
So if you want a true difference (increase) in low end torque of an engine you need to jump block size. So if you compare something like a Merc 115 and a Merc 150, the Merc 150 will actually be working less at low to mid RPMs than the 115. You will also have situations where the speed is the same but the RPMs of the 150 is measureably lower than what the 115 would be, to the point that the 150 will actually get better gas mileage than the 115 because it is running at lower RPMs.
One of my best friends was the lead engineer on the Opti package at Merc and he has shown me the charts, they are on line too. For me this made a good case to max out the HP and I have never regretted it.
Everybody spends their money differently, if a guy is buying a new boat he has already committed to spending too much money on a toy so don't get cheap now. It's like comparing a Legend to a TI, both will do the job but one costs a bunch more.
Have a great weekend everyone. 
Edited by btfish 2/21/2015 10:34 AM
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Location: minocqua, wi. | lund guy - 2/20/2015 10:40 PM
I have a 115 merc on the back of my tuffy and its rated for a 150 and it gets out of the hole jut fine and planes out beautifully at not even 3/4 throttle she dose 30 mph the right prop makes the difference
deep down and if wishes were horses ... you want the 150 though. :0) |
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Posts: 18
| jonnysled - 2/21/2015 9:51 AM
lund guy - 2/20/2015 10:40 PM
I have a 115 merc on the back of my tuffy and its rated for a 150 and it gets out of the hole jut fine and planes out beautifully at not even 3/4 throttle she dose 30 mph the right prop makes the difference
deep down and if wishes were horses ... you want the 150 though. :0 )
Just picked up a Tuffy 1760 with a 115 Merc and kinda wish wishes were horses, but we'll see what she does once I can get her wet.
lund guy - curious which prop you have...can you let me know? You have the same boat? |
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Posts: 32830
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | He has an 1800 Renegade. |
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| horsepower is a measure of how quickly the available torque can be applied...motors with the same amount of torque but different horsepower can do the same job, just not at the same pace. when starting a boat from a dead stop, the difference is often nominal when measured in seconds-to-plane. when measured in percentages, the difference becomes more apparent.
for me, a 1 second difference in time to plane isn't a big deal because it's still a short amount of real time and i'm not usually in that much of a hurry. however, when running in genuinely heavy waves where i'm working the throttle to manage things safely, any lag in accelerating the boat becomes much more important - so give me the motor that applies the torque faster (ie., the one with more horsepower) every time.
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Posts: 295
| M Winther - 2/24/2015 8:03 PM
horsepower is a measure of how quickly the available torque can be applied...motors with the same amount of torque but different horsepower can do the same job, just not at the same pace. when starting a boat from a dead stop, the difference is often nominal when measured in seconds-to-plane. when measured in percentages, the difference becomes more apparent.
for me, a 1 second difference in time to plane isn't a big deal because it's still a short amount of real time and i'm not usually in that much of a hurry. however, when running in genuinely heavy waves where i'm working the throttle to manage things safely, any lag in accelerating the boat becomes much more important - so give me the motor that applies the torque faster (ie., the one with more horsepower) every time.
^^^X3 |
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Posts: 1283
| I dont know much about these bigger motors MPG but I will weigh in on the under powered motors. My boat is rated for a 125 but I have a 60 out back. It runs in the upper 30s top end, planes out just fine, handles and trolls very nice. Unless I just want to go faster I see 0 other advantages to changing motors for fishing. With that said I still want a bigger motor to make the boat pull the skis/tube around when taking the kids out. |
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Posts: 483
Location: NE PA | I have an 18' Tracker targa with a 75hp merc 4 stroke. It is not a fast boat (32-35 depending) and works well for most of my needs, however when I was on LSC last year in some larger waves I noticed the lack of "on demand" power when working the throttle through the rollers. This is the only time I felt as though the boat was underpowered. That being said, if I could do it over again I would look for something with a few more ponies. |
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