Evinrude FICHT Testing

Hello,
I just purchased a boat with twin 90hp FICHT's. The boat was purchased as-in from government auction, I'm attempting to determine if the engines are any good. They are de-rigged and hung on the boat.

Port Engine:
1999 Evinrude FICHT 90hp
Port Side 100/105 <------ the 100psi plug was clean (as new) but the electrode was new looking also...
Starboard Side 120/120

Starboard Engine:
2001 Evinrude FICHT 90hp
Port Side 120/118
Startboard Side 120/122

These are high-hour engines that have presumably been well maintained, plugs are all indexed etc. What do what do we know from these numbers???

Thanks,
Craig

Re: Evinrude FICHT Testing

The 120 numbers are very good. It is normal to see some compression variances from one side of the engine to the other. In your 1999 case, the variance is technically out of the 10% "normal" variance range. Still, you may find it provides good service for some time into the future. Since they are reported to be high engine hours, I'd run a can of Bombardier Engine Tuner through each engine and recheck the compression (esp on the 99) again. The 99 was built by the old OMC company, in their last year before they went bankrupt. Many of their 60-degree Ficht engines failed and they continue to have a poor reputation. The 2001 was made by Bombardier and should be a great product, despite the fact that it has the Ficht label. They completely redid the product line when they took over. I'd have a local Bombardier dealer run the serial numbers and see what warranty work has been done on both, and if there are any service mods (campaigns) that were/were not installed on the engines. If you take the engines to the dealer, he can dump the computers and tell you more about their hours, etc. We have see many of them with very high hours-still running.

Re: Evinrude FICHT Testing

emdsapmgr said:

The 120 numbers are very good. It is normal to see some compression variances from one side of the engine to the other. In your 1999 case, the variance is technically out of the 10% "normal" variance range. Still, you may find it provides good service for some time into the future. Since they are reported to be high engine hours, I'd run a can of Bombardier Engine Tuner through each engine and recheck the compression (esp on the 99) again. The 99 was built by the old OMC company, in their last year before they went bankrupt. Many of their 60-degree Ficht engines failed and they continue to have a poor reputation. The 2001 was made by Bombardier and should be a great product, despite the fact that it has the Ficht label. They completely redid the product line when they took over. I'd have a local Bombardier dealer run the serial numbers and see what warranty work has been done on both, and if there are any service mods (campaigns) that were/were not installed on the engines. If you take the engines to the dealer, he can dump the computers and tell you more about their hours, etc. We have see many of them with very high hours-still running.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the help, I'm going to attempt to rig the starboard engine shortly and get it running, right now the connections are all dirty and loose and in need of attention. The '99 had 911hrs on it in 2002/09/01! So it could have triple that on it at this point in its life.

Another question, the boat came without keys. It has the Bombardier dual controls with the lanyards but no keys. Are these computer keyed or what do I need to do to get it running? Can I just jump it at the control connections? This was an auction sale and I do have ownership... I'm not interested in paying a dealer big money for keys.

I should note that the compression test was done with the throttle pinned open and the motor cold (-10C). This doesn't affect my relative compression but if the 120MAX was low this could be why.


Craig

Re: Evinrude FICHT Testing

A lot of hours for sure! OMC makes numbered keys for their start switches. I'd pull the round nut off each key switch and see if there is a number stamped on the shaft of the switch, under the nut. It is on that shaft somewhere. You may need to disassemble the box to get the switch out and look at it.Once you find the number, get that key number from Bombardier. They are about $4 each. A new key is cheaper than a new key switch. Your compression numbers may vary slightly once the engines are running and warmed, but not significantly.