250e-tec v/s 250xs

[ptextreme]

I am currently running a 2000 250efi merc on a 27' concept centerconsole, I am thinking of repowering in the spring. my motor runs great still has warranty until april 06. the dry weight on my boat is only 2600#s. the reason I'm thinging of repowering is fuel consumption, and the wife gave me the ok, I'm tired of $100-$200 every weekend. e-tec will offer a 7 year warranty in january, and merc only offers a 2year warranty. does anyone own a new 250e-tec? had a 98 ficht worst thing I ever owned. merc would be cheaper since I already am setup for it.controls, oil tank, ect. any performance differance between the 2?

[150aintenuff]

any fuel savings will be minimal... bout the only engine not using ROUGHLY 10% fuel to HP is a suzuki.. most of the ERudes and mercs are hangin about that 23-25GPH range for the 250.. Suzuki is about 20-21 for its 250hp GPH but is also 4 stroke so some may not go there because of that reason.. if simply upgrading for economy look for the engine that gives most rated HP with least ammount of GPH at your current cruising speed and at WOT.. then that will be your engine... just my .02

[jimmyb]

actually the fuel consumption on the 250XS will be much better than your 250EFI...

the 10% HP rule doesnt really apply to DFI motors...

[150aintenuff]

true but they are still right around 8.5-9%

[jimmyb]

well, i guess the numbers are relative 8.5 is sorta close to 10... maybe it will make more sense this way... the opti's are roughly 15% better fuel economy at WOT. Maybe 15% is insignificant to you... :)

at cruising speeds, the 250XS will burn roughly 30-50% LESS fuel than a comparable EFI or carb motor. Significant? depends on how much gas you burn every weekend. If you burn 100 gallons a year, dont bother. If you burn 1000 gallons a year, then it starts making economic sense, not to mention the reduction in oil consumption.

if you look at the recent bass and walleye boat magazine shootouts (225 and 200 hp), merc optis came in the clear winner in overall performance AND fuel economy

[jimmyb]

here is the fuel economy difference between the 200 DFI motors from the latest bass and walleye shootout

Fuel (gph)

WOT

Evinrude 20.1

Yamaha 18.1 (5500)

Mercury 17.5

I don't call that small.

[Lockjaw]

I have noticed that as well in the testing, that the opti's do well on gas. One of my fishing buddys has a 225 opti, and let me tell you, its a sweet engine.

He gets good mileage, said that is why he went to the opti. Makes me want one something awful.

Oh and the 98 ficts had issue's. You weren't the only person who had trouble with them, you can't get jack for trade on one, even if it runs good. If you get a BRP one, its much better.

I like the opti, its had all its bugs worked out, and the 250 is a power house.

[goodride]

lets, see,...a new 250 e tec ,costs more than a ..pt cruiser


uhh do i want to pay to fix....for 7 years??.. not if i don't have too.

.thats a good deal! .....7 for free, from ...brp..

its not a ..carb kit, anymore......................emm...injectors....high pressure pumps..

not a couple hundred, ..its a couple parts, at $800 each, plus the labor..

So the work order is....$1850.00....not $850.00.

Dayaaammmnn, these new technology motors are ..GREAT... but they still burn .......

1 gallon for every ...10 horsepower....running wide open.. about the same....forever!!..with an outboard..


So figure out what will...PUKE... go new ...get the 7 year, and you win.

run the tech motor, at 4000 rpm, or less , and you get the milage....too

the win,,, win ,,,,,fuel savings will take a couple years to catch up to the tech motor price , over a carb motor

What else do we have now, ??.. so run the best motor for your boat..

and run it...and run it...and run ..it
goodride

[JJB]

Listen to Jimmyb......It was around Feburary of this year when I e-mailed Jimmyb (Merc engineer) about info on the 250XS's and all I can say is he was 110% correct about the fuel and performance figures he gave me. After I talked to him I purchased two 250XS's and hung them on the back of a 29' Lightning and both the performance and fuel ecomony are unbelievable. One of the only downsides to the earlier 250XS's is you need to burn Premiun gas which is not a big deal if you can trailer your boat and fill up at the gas pumps and not at a Marina, but now it's a moot point as the 2006 250XS can burn reg unleaded.
Now if Merc only comes out with the 300XS.........................

JJB

[150aintenuff]

not to argu the 10% rule but the Etec used exactially 10% of fuel to hp rating..... merc was better.. no argument there.. so WOT fuel usage goes to merc.. nuffsaid, but what about cruise speed at say 30-40 mph... or where ever the particular boat cruises at currently.. then does it swap statistics or does it stay merc.. if it swaps then ya cot yer cruising answer but if it dont then there is no choice if fuel usage is dictatin yer options.. I still would look at a Suzuki 250 though.. fer milage concerns anywhow..

[jimmyb]

optis will beat the 4-stroke motors on fuel consumption at most partial throttle points...

here's why: LEAN burning!!! Opti's run stratified charge at partial throttle, that means that they are running very lean (18:1 ~ 20:1 and sometimes leaner, air fuel ratios). A normal EFI 4-stroke has to run closer to homogenius (15:1) and most run a bit richer than that to be safe... and they will burn gas because they cant run stratified. Some of the 4 stroke motors (audi race motors) are going to DFI, so they can run stratified and leaner air/fuel ratios...

in the shoot outs, merc won most of the maximum fuel economy comparisions. You guys should at least buy the bass and walleye boat magazine and read it, instead of reguritating stuff you read other places on the net and relying on others to post info! :)

[Lockjaw]

Jimmy you are right.

That is one of the things I dislike about the E-tec. Most of the people you talk to talk about how good it is. Great I hope so. Has a 7 year warranty, great, but that doesn't mean crap to me if I have to use it, know what I mean? And you hear about this no break in time, yet I have seen several people talking about the motor being in break in period.

I also do not like the "tuned for high performance" thing they put for power output on some of their motors.

Wait time at my dealer is 3 weeks, and in my opinion, thats a royal PITA. I fish these little tournaments with my church, and guess what, I fish better driving in my boat then riding in the back of someone elses. I don't want my boat sitting down there. Plus 3 weeks in the summer is like forever!!

So I will wait and see about the Etec. I have heard one, it sounds good, and I am not saying I wouldn't buy one, but I don't like hype, I like cold hard facts. I will happily trade a 1MPH on top for better gas mileage everywhere else. :)

[JWTjr.]

jimmy is correct. I was highly disappointed in the fuel mileage of the first E-Tec we tested. I was hoping it was a fluke then, so we retested and then again--with the same results. Of course we gave Merc and Yamaha the same courtesy, but our instruments and testing results were accurate the first time.

The second E-Tec fared no better, and so it went with the third. Perhaps they've got them running a bit richer than necessary to stay on the safe side, that may be how they can offer the great warranty. However, that would increase emissions, for which Bombardier is touting E-Tec's superiority as well. We cannot verify those claims as we don't test for emissions.

It's too bad. I love the way E-Tecs look, sound and run. They really are nice. But, if I were buying a large outboard and fuel economy was a deciding factor, it would be difficult to ignore the test results.

JWTjr.

[Markus]

if you look at the recent bass and walleye boat magazine shootouts (225 and 200 hp), merc optis came in the clear winner in overall performance AND fuel economy

I don't have the magazines here, but didn't Yamaha HPDI come out on top in performance in both those tests?

[150aintenuff]

I guess it all depends on how a engine is used.. I dont spend a lot of time at " cruising speed" where the stratisfied charge a DFI makes at midrange over a STD inductuion system... so advantages are minimal.. key is highest top speed with least ammount of fuel usage.. = highest MPG I havent heard much about the zuki V6's here but believe me they run VERY well, are fairly quick, and run close in top speed although with theire deeper 2.29 gearing props are an issue at about anything capible of more than 65-66mph.. but they are good on fuel, and so far I have hears of only 1 failure.. and it was due to a defective timing belt that was totally covered under warranty..

I will also always be leary of the optimax because of its early years of popcorn engines.. and I will never be a fitcht owner either because of their issues.. Etec is still to new IMO.. though they are prooving themselfs nicely on the boats that have them here..

Verado gets a veto based on weight and fuel usage.. to heavy.. uses to much fuel for HP output..(typical blower motor) and also more fuel consumtion does not always men greater emmissions..

as does less consumption does not always ensure less emmissions output.

my 1968 ford with a 390 gets 16 mpg at 60 mph.... my nissan i had with a 3.0L V6 got 10 mpg at 60 mph... so the 3L burned more fuel... was a smaller motor, and spun the same RPM.. with 2 CYL less.... so it was burning alot richer yet was cleaner at the tailpipe than the ford... go figure... however if ya shut the truck off it would drip RAW fuel on to the ground....

as fer the 200 test the yamaha did out do the merc and was close to Etec... but they also swapped back and forth boat to boat .... all that really indicates is the motors were putting out the same HP ppushing the same weight... the main factor is fuel usage at speed... the faster it can go with less ammount of fuel.. the more $$$$$$$ effiecent it is... and isnt that the only real efficency that matters anyhow..... dollars out to the ammout of fun in?????

[blkmtrfan]

I dont spend a lot of time at " cruising speed" where the stratisfied charge a DFI makes at midrange over a STD inductuion system... so advantages are minimal..

But most potential owners do ;)

[150aintenuff]

i could cruise if I had more power... it takes WOT to get the pig to even run good... I might cruise in the stream if I can ever get all my parts in..... doubt it though

[jimmyb]

yeah, we all like to think that we always run our boats at WOT and that mid range economy isnt that important. I thought I ran my 250XS really hard... until i downloaded my run time for a year. (I am a tournament fisherman that runs an Allison, so my speeds are either WOT or idle). Guess what I found? i ran almost 150 hours in a summer and 2/3 of that time was at idle!!! and total time over 5500 rpm? well it was less than 1 hour! the rest of the time was midrange? How could this be? well think about your boating... Most of the time is spent at idle (especially if you have a bunch of nowake zones). Then the next amount of time is spent accelerating. Once you accelerate to your top speed, chances are you are shutting down cause you have gotten to where you were going, or you are out of lake (most lakes get small at 90+). So that equals lots of time at idle and midrange rpms!!!

now if you want to talk about guys that really spend lots of hours at high rpms, you shouldnt talk to the hot boat crowd, you should talk to the offshore fishing crowd (guys that fish the SKA and other offshore tournaments) they are running 2, 3 and 4 engine boats for hours at WOT in one direction. Fish for a few hours, then run hours back to the weigh. Those guys can put on 1000-1800 hours on their motors a year, with a bunch of time at high rpm!



However, the focus of this thread was on fuel economy.

let me reiterate

optis = 15% better fuel economy at WOT vs. the "10% rule" with out sacrificing anything in performance. (15% is a bunch, in my book)

optis = 30-50% better fuel economy at mid range cruise vs. a carb/efi motor

optis = very good fuel economy at idle (which we havent talked about yet). They burn .3-.4 gph ingear idle. An comparable EFI burns between 1.2-1.5 gph at the same idle!!! In my allison, i burn about .8-.9 gph at 900 rpm, while going 5.5 mph when i am "pushing" thru no wake zones. With an EFI motor, was burning close to 2 gph at the same speed

[iammarcuse]

Good info here!
The thread is about the fuel economy of 250 e-tec vs 250xs. Here is the summary of the shoot out http://www.bassandwalleyeboats.com/output.cfm?id=943489 At WOT the e-tec actually won. At cruise the the e-tec was 5.4mpg and the Merc 5.7mpg. Not a huge difference. For my money I would get....the Yamaha....and it lost just about everything(although only marginally)! Who cares how long the warranty is if it spends any time AT ALL getting fixed(even on warranty). For shear reliability I haven't seen anything that comes close to a Yammie.

[Charlie M]

I have yet to see a boat have any boat with a bunch of hours at top speed. The proof is in the gas tank. Unless you have owned or operated a DFI motor you would never know. I just use one 6 gallon tank going out on the water with friends. Smoke their ass's taking off, water sports all day, and smoke thier ass's heading back. Never waited for them at the boat ramp I was there loaded waiting for them to get back.

I would never consider a Suzuki (had a few Suzuki products and not nearly impressed with any of them).

I have, have owned, and have operated all of them considerbly, and the 2 Stroke DFI is headed in the right direction. Except for the Verado I can't give a bunch of info on them other than what I have heard, and I have heard only good things.

[MattGreen]

The BOMB-BOMB shop I worked at rigged 3 250 ETECs this summer, 2 were twins on a big inflatable, the other was on a big, heavy 20' cuddy. The owners raved about them, and the inflatable had 2 year old Yamaha's previously.

Hopefully the wait has improved, we fought like hell to just GET the motors, bigger volume dealers will have less of a problem with this I suspect.

Matt