e-tec or 4 stroke.

[BillP]

Re: e-tec or 4 stroke.

Skinnywater......I truly believe that this is a useless and never ending, pointless argument, but I completely see what your saying, and maybe the maintenance isn't a big deal at all to people like us here on this forum, and in a lot of cases it probably isn't even a factor, but it is still there and it needs to be done by somebody, and the simple fact is, that it is more than needs to be done to a 2 stroke, not that a 2 stroke doesn't need anything, just not as much.

If I had a 4 stroke, I would do the oil changes and whatever else it needed myself, adjust the valves...whatever, but I can and I'd probably enjoy it, if it didn't interfere with my fishing season.

But for someone who doesn't even know how an engine works, besides you turn the key to the right it runs, you turn it to the left it stops.....there's no way they're doing it themselves. And that's condsidering they even know it has to be done.

Lets say you run both for 100 hours, and neither had a thing done to them, but the 2 stroke has been pulling through clean fresh oil for this 100 hrs, and the 4 stroke has been circulating old, dirty oil through and old filter, and maybe the valves are a little out of adjustment....which is gonna suffer more?

Most people won't bring their engine in, unless it's broken and needs to be fixed, so at that point which technology would be worse off having nothing doen to it?

Personally I have my boat in the water for 8 months out of the year, and I don't want to have to go through the trouble of pulling it out for anything unless absolutely neccesary, meaning a problem that makes me do it, which will happen to either technology.

So I don't want anything coming up, where I have to go through the hassle of getting my boat out of the water, because I put more hours than I thought on it in the first 4 months in the water and now I need to change the oil or check my valves, and I really don't want to hang over the engine in the water, and lose my tools in the canal. A 2 stroke won't make me do that.

Just the way I look at it, anything more that needs to be done, to me is still more, and I'd rather be using it than doing that. If it's sitting in my driveway all the time, it's one thing, but for me to pull it, I'm wasting a whole day and maybe a weekend, and I'd factor that into the cost of anything I bought.

That sums it up very well. Every time I spend a Saturday morning adjusting valves and changing oil on my 4 stroke my mind always tells me how ready my 2 strokes always are and how I could be fishing instead of doing motor work. As 4 stroke owners start having etec owner boat pals the conversion from 4 stroke to etec happens. No matter how "factored in" maintenance downtime is it isn't desired over less maintenance. That's what I'm seeing here in Florida and my perspective is coming from a wide cross section of local boaters, not web sites. Florida probably led the 4 stroke frenzy starting in the mid 1990s and is now showing signs of the next frenzy with etecs.

4 stroke (Honda) OBs hit the USA big in the early 1970s (1960s if anyone thinks Bearcat is a benchmark - I sure don't) and didn't do well until OMC went down, the EPA stepped in and gas prices skyrocketed...that process took 20+ yrs. Time will tell for etec too.

B.

 

[dingbat]

Re: e-tec or 4 stroke.

That sums it up very well. Every time I spend a Saturday morning adjusting valves and changing oil on my 4 stroke my mind always tells me how ready my 2 strokes always are and how I could be fishing instead of doing motor work. As 4 stroke owners start having etec owner boat pals the conversion from 4 stroke to etec happens. No matter how "factored in" maintenance downtime is it isn't desired over less maintenance. That's what I'm seeing here in Florida and my perspective is coming from a wide cross section of local boaters, not web sites. Florida probably led the 4 stroke frenzy starting in the mid 1990s and is now showing signs of the next frenzy with etecs.

4 stroke (Honda) OBs hit the USA big in the early 1970s (1960s if anyone thinks Bearcat is a benchmark - I sure don't) and didn't do well until OMC went down, the EPA stepped in and gas prices skyrocketed...that process took 20+ yrs. Time will tell for etec too.

B.

How often are you adjusting valves on your 4 stroke?

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: e-tec or 4 stroke.

From the Merc Site:

Maintenance-Free Valve Train
The 75 – 115 FourStrokes feature the same VALVE TRAIN architecture as Verado – a robust design that is incredibly durable and maintenance free for life.

 

[hitace]

Re: e-tec or 4 stroke.

2>4

 

[Danno Pcola]

Re: e-tec or 4 stroke.

My wife spoke the magic words about a month ago "baby we need a bigger boat" so I sold my 18' Key West with a Yamaha 115 and moved up to a 23' Key West walk-around with a 225 Evinrude Etec.
I did my homework and went out looking for the specific combination. I am totally blown away by the etec, 500 rpm idling speed make the boat easy to handle, but its got a kick that I did not imagine.
Contact your local dealer and try both motors on a boat similar to your. (We fishermen like showing off our toys.)
Don't get influenced by the hype of the price of the XD100 oil, I buy it bulk from a dealer at $16 a gallon and it lasts almost through a tank (140 gal.) of gas in my Key West.

 

[Skinnywater]

Re: e-tec or 4 stroke.

Don't get influenced by the hype of the price of the XD100 oil, I buy it bulk from a dealer at $16 a gallon and it lasts almost through a tank (140 gal.) of gas in my Key West.

From the Merc Site:
Maintenance-Free Valve Train
The 75 ? 115 FourStrokes feature the same VALVE TRAIN architecture as Verado ? a robust design that is incredibly durable and maintenance free for life.

Seems the frog hair between the two gets finer all the time.

 

[fish4me2]

Re: e-tec or 4 stroke.

,,,

 

[phatmanmike]

Re: e-tec or 4 stroke.

id skip both the Etec and all its hype and skip the 4 stroke and all its hype and get somthing ben around a while .....

yammy's HPDI, but do they make em that small?