200hp Optimax, Fuel Figures

[Vitamin Sea]

Hi All

Took the boat out for a run with the new Opti last Saturday to get some run in time up, thought some may be interested in the fuel consumption.

Bear in mind that it was run in time and accordingly was up and down on the throttle the whole time.

3 POB, full tank of juice

This is what the smart gauges told me

3000rpm, 35 km/h ( GPS ) 17 litres/H
3300 rpm, 41.5 km/h 20 L/H
3500 rpm, 46.5 km/h 22.9 L/H
3550 rpm, 47.5 km/h 23 L/H
4000 rpm, 53.4 km/h 28.5 L/H
4500 rpm, 61.2 km/h 35.5 L/H

Travelled 84 K/M
Did 2.6 Hrs
Gauges told me I had used 44 litres of juice all up

Filled up Tuesday, put in 47 Litres, quite impressive, the old 175 would have used about 90 litres for the trip.

Will be interesting after it is run in completely and can maintain normal operating speeds

Cheers

Bill

[disorderly]

That must have put a smile on your face when you refueled,Bill.
Thats great fuel economy for a 200 straight out of the box.
Bound to get even better when it loosens up a bit .
So who said 2 strokes are a dying breed!

cheers Scott

[DALEPRICE]

gday bill,
those figure seem pretty good by the looks. when you get a few more
hours up those figures should drop down a bit more,
cheers dale

[reef_king]

so much for smart gauges, there off by 3 litres:D

[PADDLES]

that's awesome economy bill.

am I jealous ............................ yes :P

[mark221263]

What size boat are you pushing???

[Vitamin Sea]

Hi again

Scott / Dale: Yep, should only improve when it loosens up

Reef King: If they can stay within 5 - 10% I will be real happy:D

Paddles: All comes at a price mate, the Minister for War and Finance has had a bit to say since we got it::)

Mark: It's a Haines 19C

[Black_Rat]

Just out of interest Bill have you let her rip at WOT ? At only 61.2km/h @ 4500rpm she should fly and put a ;D on your face !

[Vitamin Sea]

Damo

Not yet, this week end for sure, have to see if the prop is suitable, should spin out to 5800, any more and I will have to go bigger ( 19" Pitch )

It will fly at those RPM'S

Cheers

Bill

[Wayne_Red]

Hi Bill
Great figures there. How did the performace compare to the old motor. Like chalk and cheese I bet.
Wayne

[lee8sec]

Thanks Bill, good to see some real figures. Makes spending the extra dollars to buy one abit easier seeing those numbers. Leigh

[Smithy]

Having just done a day on a 685 Cruise Craft with a 225 Optimax and coming off the back of 2 weeks using a 200 Etec on a 6.2 Seafarer the Optimax is miles in front. All of the trips I did with the Etec had 2 onboard, Saturday we had 4. The 685 has got to weigh more than the 6.2 to start with yet the Optimax was 3-5 litres better an hour for similar revs doing similar speeds. Holding good clean plane I couldn't really keep the Etec under about 3600-3800 rpm for 37-39 litres per hour. Fast cruise was 62 litres an hour and flat out was 82. Both were swinging 19" props yet the 225 was around 35 litres an hour for 3900-4100 rpm at good clean plane. Not convinced of the Etec hype.

[DALEPRICE]

smithy, love reading those figures and stuff.
been doing a bit of work on a 3200noosa cat with twin 225
optimax on her, it returns 37-39 litres per side per hour with
about a tonne on the back deck. 3900 rpm cruise for 18 knotts.
cheers dale

[NEWBY]

I have a 150 Optimax on a 21 Alison (for sale by the way) It uses around 1ltr per nautical mile. 240 ltrs under the deck. Bloody fantastic motors. Very economical. I did an injector in on mine that cost me over a grand to fix though. apparently unheard of for them to go. My rig is flat out at 43 knotts but thats fast enough I reckon.

[craigie]

Bill,

From one Opti Owner (2004, 115hp) to another, the Merc Opti's seem to be holding there own in comparison to 4 bangers and e-techs.

Your Fuel consumption figures look very good, especially in the lower rev range where they are not that much different to my 115 Opti !!
I have averaged out your figures from your maiden voyage, 1.8 km's per litre (arguable the best I've seen from a 200hp outboard) and averaging 18 litres per hour on a slow to medium cruise which is very similar to what I get out of my 115 Opti.

3500 revs certainly looks like a sweet spot for economical cruising !!

I have a mate who has just bolted a 200 Opti on to his 19 foot Haines, very interested to see how his figures compare to yours, anything similar will be sensational !! 100 litre burn (or less) to the Northern barwons and back will be excellent.

My 115 drinks 15 - 20 litres per hour cruising between 3500 - 4000 revs. I get 2.3 k's per litre in this rev range. Very happy with the figures from my Optimax.
Have just racked up 500 hrs in 3 years and just got it back from it's annual service. Been told by the mechanic that motor is still in very good condition and couldn't believe the motor had done that many hrs..

Regards
Craigie.

[Vitamin Sea]

Craigie

Yes, all seems real good on the fuel front, especially as you said Banks trips, which I do whenever I can arrange it.

3500 is probably the best economical speed, however for my mind it's a bit noisy at that range, 3800 sounds good, but it's a bit quick for heading out into a metre or more of sea, we will see.

Do you find your 115 loud? because I certainly do, unfortunately

Cheers

Bill


Bill,

From one Opti Owner (2004, 115hp) to another, the Merc Opti's seem to be holding there own in comparison to 4 bangers and e-techs.

Your Fuel consumption figures look very good, especially in the lower rev range where they are not that much different to my 115 Opti !!
I have averaged out your figures from your maiden voyage, 1.8 km's per litre (arguable the best I've seen from a 200hp outboard) and averaging 18 litres per hour on a slow to medium cruise which is very similar to what I get out of my 115 Opti.

3500 revs certainly looks like a sweet spot for economical cruising !!

I have a mate who has just bolted a 200 Opti on to his 19 foot Haines, very interested to see how his figures compare to yours, anything similar will be sensational !! 100 litre burn (or less) to the Northern barwons and back will be excellent.

My 115 drinks 15 - 20 litres per hour cruising between 3500 - 4000 revs. I get 2.3 k's per litre in this rev range. Very happy with the figures from my Optimax.
Have just racked up 500 hrs in 3 years and just got it back from it's annual service. Been told by the mechanic that motor is still in very good condition and couldn't believe the motor had done that many hrs..

Regards
Craigie.

[Daisy]

Firstly I do have an E-tec 50hp (baby) so the following comments could be biased::)

[Daisy]

A bit ruff mate lots of other factors to consider such as planing attitude and out of the hole (some hulls like to sit on their arse more than others) food for thought tho. A mate of mine has recently changed over from a 225 Optimax to a 250 E-tec on his 680 Patriot and while he's very happy with the obvious extra power he boasts similar fuel usage. Maybe the age of the Opti (over 700 hrs)
A bit ruff mate lots of other factors to consider such as planing attitude and out of the hole (some hulls like to sit on their arse more than others) food for thought tho. A mate of mine has recently changed over from a 225 Optimax to a 250 E-tec on his 680 Patriot and while he's very happy with the obvious extra power he boasts similar fuel usage. Maybe the age of the Opti (over 700 hrs)
I think I stuffed my quotes up:-[ but that one was for you Smithy

ps; By the way Bill congrats on the opti, the mate I mentioned got a great run out of his it was just a matter of circumstances that led to him purchasing the E-tec.

Cheers Mick Day

"Barramundiman watches you sleep"

[craigie]

Bill,

Have not noticed my 115 being any noisier than other brands ?
At Idle that's a different story, it's a lot quieter that conventional 2 strokes !!

Cheers
Craigie.

[Steve B]

I have a brand new 90 HP Opti and during the run in period at various rev speeds I did 176km (on GPS) on 50ltrs of fuel pushing a 5m plate side console up and down Monduran dam. The oil used was about 3lts. I have been told by the dealer that the Oil consumption will improve after the motor has done 10hours (apparently 200 to 300:1) depending on workload.

Can anyone give me further information or statistics of their oil consumption during and after run in period??

cheers steve

[FNQCairns]

Steve B, in no way am I doubting you as I have no experience to do so but your economy is equivalent to a boat I sold not long ago, a 4.2m 30hp very basic tinny.
You sure you got those numbers? again I am not having a go just seems exceptional is all, is the hull a low deadrise design? If you are getting economy like this the rig should really fly at wot.

cheers fnq

[disorderly]

SteveB,great fuel economy there, but 3 litres of oil for 50litres of fuel? Must of been puffing a bit of smoke out ,mate.
Just as well you were not using Etec xd100 oil,would have cost you around $65 dollars just for oil.
Does the dealer reprogram the motor after 10 hrs to reduce oil consumption?

cheers Scott

[scungey]

I went for a test ride at TR Marine in a 620 Offshore with a 175 Optimax. Superb motor with plenty of grunt!

[disorderly]

Scungey,you could really tell it was a "superb motor" from one test ride?

[Smithy]

During 2 weeks of use we used about 850 litres of boat fuel and went through a 20 litre tub of XD100 Etec oil with a store price of $300. Luckily I got the oil a bit cheaper than that. That added about 100 hours to the hour meter so to get to the claimed 300 hour first service you would be putting through about $900 worth of oil. Trade that off against the cost of 4 stroke servicing every 100 hours and I don't think there is much in it, or not as much as the pro Etec people will have you believe and their cost of servicing 4 strokes arguments.

[disorderly]

Smithy ,I'd be checking that 20 litre tub for holes ,mate.
As you most likely know,the 100 in xd 100 refers to a fuel/oil ratio of 100/1.
And if you are doing a bit of trolling (as your fuel usage figures suggest) then that can drop to as much as 300/1.(whilst at low rpm)
You should have used a maximum of 8.5 litres of oil for 850 litres of fuel and more likely less.
Your figures dont add up!

cheers Scott

[FNQCairns]

Possibly the marketing claims on oil consumption are just that? - Sooner or later it all comes out in the wash.
Or
the dealers have no good idea how to mechanically calibrate the ratio to the manufacturers specs at the engine OR they cannot be bothered as they can then effectively pocket that portion of the setup fee?

cheers fnq

[FNQCairns]

It's interesting, to oil an old tech 2 stroke at 50:1 costs aprox $255 with Yamalube for 850L of fuel (if my calculation is right).

I don't understand what's going on!! Thought these new tech o/bs were all about better economy - everywhere.

cheers fnq

[craigie]

Steve B,

Better than 3 k's to the litre for your run-in sounds good, especially if that was done at planning speeds !!

As for the Oil, with my 115 Opti, I buy the Quicksilver DFI in the grey 4 litre bottle for around $40 a pop. Maybe slightly cheeper at the boating, Camping, Fishing place.
Hard to give an accurate usage on the oil due to the variation in revs (trolling, cruising etc) at a gues I'd say I get between 20 and 30 hrs out of a 4 litre bottle.

Cheers
Craigie.

[disorderly]

Fnq,
The Etec is calibrated for oil usage via computer programming.
Justs sounds like more ETEC bashing to me.

cheers Scott

[Steve B]

FNQ, I agree with you. I thought that milage seemed a bit much, but I did a few calculations about the distance up and down monduran and the amount of times I did it over 2 days (7.2hrs on tacho) and I think it must be right!! the hull is a 5m makocraft frenzy with a fair few extras like rodlockers, livewell, electric and batteries etc. Top speed was about 68km perhour 42MPH at 5700RPM with 19P 4 blade trophy S/S prop. Just me in it without much gear.

The dealer put about 5 litres in at sale (they are all heart!!!:-/ ) and I put another 50 litres in before run in, I run it down to just on empty mark (where it was when I bought it)
Apprarently the computer in them recognises when 10hrs is up and automatically reverts to normal running mix.

About smoke, I was quite suprised. It did momentarilly if you get up it after idleing for any length of time and you got a good wiff of 2 stroke!! but any other time it didn't,

A 10 litre bottle of oil was $100. thats pretty expensive, so I hope the oil consumption improves:D

[FNQCairns]

Thanks for the extra info Steve b, looks like if anyone is going to get outstanding economy it is you, the 90 is a 3cyl, it is also DI, and by the numbers you gave at wot you are achieving almost 4% prop slip!!! that's in theory about as good as it gets, the hull must be an efficient one as well.

Whoever chose your prop got it right for your rig, which is overall unusual IMO.

Of coarse the results do depend on whether the Trophy 4blade 19P does in practice travel 19inches per rev but still in theory those are brilliant numbers.

Lake boats run pretty light mostly and your engine is still to loosen up, a good prop to stick with IMO

cheers fnq

[Dicko]

I don't understand what's going on!! Thought these new tech o/bs were all about better economy - everywhere.

cheers fnq

They are about economy, but some are also about making a continuous stream of money.

The prices of oil getting quoted here are ridiculous, I run a 90 tohatsu TLDI, which is a similar system to the optimax & use valvoline HP 2 stroke oil (Fortified Synthetic, TC W3 certified). It's about 25 or 26 bucks regular price for 5 litres at places like supa cheap auto, or about 19 to 22 per 5 litres on special. With the mixture rates of these things around 100 to 1, and using regular unleaded, they are very economical.

The combined fuel/oil running cost is only about 4 cents per litre on top of the fuel pump price you pay for unleaded. Which still works out cheaper than buying premium unleaded, which most seem to use in their injected 2 strokes & 4 strokes anyway. (This also throws out one of the arguments of the added oil cost in the 2 stroke vs 4 stroke debates that often happen. lol)

It's also one of the oils on the recomended list by Tohatsu ,and is one of the oils sold & used by the dealers.

I run it in previous 2 strokes for many years and now in the injected 2 stroke for 2 years and no problems.

I'd be interested to see the 'technical' (as in not marketing) reason why a cheaper alternative oil like this is not on the recomended list for an E tech, or Optimax.

Having a recomended list of oils which consists of 1 or 2, which are only supplied by the manufacturer/dealer sounds like a recipe for a con job to me.

[craigie]

Dicko,

You make some interesting points.

It begs the question, Ain't Oils, Oils and what's the difference ??

I run my Opti on the Manufacturer recomended Quicksiler (Mercury) product, would no doubt void my warranty if I didn't. But now that my warranty period is coming to a close, I would be interested to hear from a genuine Oils expert as to the real differences between the various 2 stroke oils on the market.

What would happen if I put a less expensive 2 stroke oil into the Opti ??

Let me make it clear I hav'nt yet done such a thing, just interested to hear the various arguments as you have suggested.

Cheers
Craigie.

[FNQCairns]

Cragie probably no damage but only as long as the substitiuted TCW3 oil is Jasco FC rated (or better - FD) as that I think is what the mercury oil is.
The xd100 is FD rated I am sure so is top shelf and still is or originally was a torco TCW3 oil from memory.

Yamalube 2 (which is Citgo sea and snow 2 stroke oil) is fc rated so sit's pretty well in the middle for a tcw3 oil, any TCW3 with an FC rating is OK to use.

The TCW3 rating is almost bogus in extent, for example there are watercooled 2 stroke engines that will destruct if an FB or FC TCW3 is used but do OK with an oil FD rated. This is not because of anything truly special about these engines it's the degree of inherant lack of protection an oil that meets the TCW3 spec has.

When it is all broken down to the nitty gritty all that TCW3 stands for is biodegradable additives and anti plug fouling additives also mixable. I hate the stuff as it is allowed be very low in quality protection compared to other oils.

Dicko not to be smart alec but I think (not totally sure) that synthetic Valvoline is FB rated so is at or nearing the bottom of the TCW3 rating for overall wear protection/smoke/cokeing etc and that is pretty low for any 2 stroke oil (actually probably cannot get lower) regardless of application.
Give Valvoline a ring to see what the Jasco F? rating is, if it is of interest to you.

It's nice now the consumer has other tools based on science to make informed choices on their oils, 10 years ago the crappy TCW3 rating was all that was available to base a choice on and it was actually a no choice rating as the minimum wear/lubrication protection component of the rating is very easy to meet.

Anyway just how pathetic the TCW3 rating is, is a pet hate of mine as you may have been able to tell:)

cheers fnq

[Smithy]

OK here is the lowdown. We kept fuel reciepts for the 2 weeks on holiday. They totalled $912 with fuel at 118.9 so 767 litres reciepted for. Might have missed the first night I filled it up so another 150 litres so 917 litres total. The last day we didn't refill so maybe another 120 litres at the most as even though it was a short day it was a rough day. Total fuel consumed absolute maximum is 1037 litres. At 100/1 that does work out to 10 litres. No way in the world did we use anything approaching 10 litres. We were decanting the 20 litre tub into 4 litre bottles and putting a 4 litre one in every second day or so. Say we picked up the boat with 2 litres in the 10 litre reservoir, we put through the full 20 litres from the big tub and a litre left over from one of his 4 litre containers. Therefore we put in 21litres in two weeks and gave it back to him with maybe 1/2 a bottle worth in his big reservoir. Therefore the very least amount of oil we used for my holidays was say 17-18 litres. Best case scenario is then 1037 litres of petrol for 17 litres of oil used or 61:1.

Yes we did a lot of trolling but on a typical 130 litre day like we were doing 90-100 litres of the fuel consumption was from the running. The reason we used XD100 was it was a borrowed boat and that is what the owner said to use so we did. Maybe he needs to have it looked at if it is returning an oil consumption figure of 61:1. It was certainly smokey at times and left a oil smudge on the leg under one of the exhaust ports near the telltale. Have a look how smokey it was at times on this video or in the video section of Ausfish.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-XPWyL483To

Anyway this whole experience has turned me to 4 strokes even more than I was before.

[Dicko]

Anyway just how pathetic the TCW3 rating is, is a pet hate of mine as you may have been able to tell:)

cheers fnq

yo, it is of interest, as I like comparing apples & apples.

I didn't completelty know what the TCW3 cerfification meant before, so I've just quickly read through the TCW3 approval system & the test manual pdf files on here

http://www.nmma.org/certification/programs/oils/

It looks to be a comprehensive procedure in using various test bed engines, checking & measuring carbon residue deposits, lubricity, ring sticking, etc etc.

What do you see as actually wrong with it ?

I've also googled the Jasco rating system & can't find much. Where can I read more about it's testing methods and ratings procedure ?

[FNQCairns]

Hi Dicko the subject is huge will try not to overspeak, what is wrong with the TCW3 spec is lubricity, it's the fact that the minimum standard to pass this test portion is almost, or is artificially low.

History gives some answers as to why, years ago the outboard industry recognised to need for a new oil that was low in coke, helped with ring sticking, could be mixed with other products + other good traits for it's day - we then had tcw2.

Then the environment came into focus and the outboard industry decided we needed an oil standard that used none of the typical anti wear additves found in quality typical 2 stroke oils or many other land based oils so they subsituted biodegradable antiwear additives in place of the less biodegradable ones -TCW3.

The NMMA is a business they knew that if the TCW3 spec called for an oil that had the lubricity, wear protection abilities of typical quality landbased and aircooled 2 stroke oils they would be in a financial predicament as certification is bought originaly and maintained yearly by the particular oil brand with money. So the spec needed to be a LOW pass due to the cost and technology needed to create the biodegradable anti-wear additive packages.

So engine owners had no idea if the oil they bought was a just pass (and suitable for at best a watercooled lawnmower IMO) or anywhere above.

There is a need for a new TCW4 spec, the nmma has recoginised it and it is in the wind but the hurdles the nmma needs to get through are large as they run the risk of becoming to some degree a white elephant if the standard askes for a higher minimum level to pass.

One way to look at it I guess is imagine there was an industry min spec for a bottle of hot air and that was 20degC yet my application will be best protected with hot air at 35+degC. How do I know which brand of hot air is actually at 20 and which is at 35, each have the same spec! at least in theory with Jasco I can now ignore anything below 35deg as not in any way the best protection.

Here is a link to Jasco http://www.jalos.or.jp/ (http://www.jalos.or.jp/) click on the first word 'jasco' from the bottom up on the left then click on 'english' then whichver you want (the pdf application lists are missing many certified oils, best to ring the marketer etc or google heaps), some with a 4 stroke O/B might be interested in the oil ratings here for gasoline engines.


Wish I had known a certain castrol oil was a low quality oil according to jasco years ago, might have saved the dirt bikes big end.

cheers fnq

[Dicko]

Arrh, the word is JASO, without the C :D

Intersting to read their 2 stroke list. I didn't see Valvoline on there (or many other US companies, they are mainly asian & european brands).

Maybe it's a case of JASO being the 'Japanese' Lubricating Oil Society and the TCW3 rating being from the NMMA which is the American, National Marine Manufacturers Association ?

It does make it difficult to compare apples & apples.

I'm happy to stick with what I'm using & what the dealer recomends to all his users, both private & commercial.

Funny thing while scouting around, I found these on the TLDI recomended list of oils on the US tohatsu site.
Tohatsu Marine Premium Oil
Nissan Marine Premium Oil
Pennzoil Complete Marine Synthetic
Pennzoil Semi-Synthetic Outboard Oil
Mercury Optimax/DFI Oil
Yamaha Yamalube 2-M Semi-Synthetic Injector Oil
Bombardier RAM Ficht OilI wonder if you see Tohatsu oil listed as recomended on a Merc, Evinrude or Yamaha site ? ;D

[FNQCairns]

Yeah sorry about that I have a habit of not double checking one day I will get the abreviation for heavy duty diesel oil correct, forever stuffing that one up.

That list is in no way comprehensive, reading between the lines it is not a compusory list and very possibly only the brands that consider it worth their while (nothing to hide) give the OK.

The penzoil marine synthetic is one of the best and at a reasonable price but BP (I think) bought them out with no plans to sell in OZ - shame.

Tohatsu does seem to profer good no b*****it advice.

With outboards my father bought a motor the same year I was born and ran it exculisivly on motor oil for the next 20 years, never measured just poured, it did many many hours in that time without fault.
So the range is wide but if the dung hit's the fan its nice to know there is an oil running that has the ability to save or limit an expensive rebuild. That's the attraction of jasco *edit JASO to me.

cheersfnq

[STUIE63]

Take the etec in to the dealer and get it checked . I wonder if it is set for the 50 oil and not the 100 . That is alot of oil it's using .
Stuie

[Cloud_9]

Craigie. my 90 2 stroke merc got 2.2 klm per L at 4000rpm and 3.3 at 5600rpm.
I just bought a 115 Evanrude Direct Injection 2 Stroke. can't wait to see the fuel figures. 5.5M C/Console.the D I is the modle just beforethe ETec's arrived.
its pretty hard to compair a 200 to a 225. the power to weight ratio will it might seem small but could be significant.
Cheers Cloud 9