Envinrude 115 Fitch engines - some advice please

[Masquerade]

Hi, I could use some advice.

I've bid on a 2000 Aquasport 225 CC with twin Eninrude 115 Ficht engines. The boat looks great but I've heard that the engines may be an issue.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Charlie..... :batman:

[Capt. Bob]

Best advice I can give is:

If you haven't already, do a Google search of your motor. You will find so many love and hate stories that sorting out the wheat from the chaff is at best an educated guess.

It's all love/hate and the only person I knew who ran the larger models was a hater but it has been considered by some that the mid engines (150/175hp) were, early on, the most problematic. Later, the larger ones (200+hp) had their share of mishaps.

Looks like the 115s were less prone to failure but you need to read and make your own conclusions.

Start here but there are plenty more to fill your head.
http://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-forum/156996-evinrude-ficht.html

Good luck.

[Asport-Rog]

Hey Charlie,

I'm assuming that your motors are original and either '99 or '00 year motors. From what I hear, and I'm sure that others will chime in. There were good ones and a few really bad ones. I believe quality control was at a lower point in time for OMC. I heard that the FICT motors had issues with burning of fuel under load at low RPMs and leaving an abrasive residue that caused parts to prematurely fail. Some suggest that you make sure that all of the updates are applied to the motor.

Do you know if the engines been rebuilt or original? It wouldn't hurt to have a mechanic take a look at motors. He should be able to pull quite a bit of information from the on board computer. It can give hours, average speed, etc.

And lastly, welcome to the site!

-Rog

[Marcq]

A quote from, can't remember where I found this

"The first question should be: Is Ficht technology still that bad? When Bombardier took over Evinrude and Johnson, their engineers went in and did whatever they had to do to make the Ficht technology reliable.

What they discovered was that the problems were pretty much all related to poor quality control. They fixed those problems within Evinrude, and wound up investing millions of dollars to improve their parts suppliers' factories as well.

There are lots of evidence to suggest that Bombardier's efforts were successful. Perhaps the best indicator of whether or not BRP "fixed the Ficht" is Powerboat Report's (PBR) long term test results. PBR ran three Ficht motors (a 150, and two 115s) , both built after BRP took over, for around 250 hours each. The results? A couple of minor issues (none related to the fuel injection system), but in general all three engines "ran almost flawlessly".

This implies to us that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the Ficht technology - just poor execution, perhaps caused by OMC's impending bankruptcy.

Now...is E-TEC technology just Ficht all over again? The answer is YES...and NO.

The E-TEC fuel injection system is based on the same design principle as the Ficht fuel injection system: injection pressure is created by a ram in the the injector itself. This is unlike Optimax and HPDI, which use separate compressors to pressurize the fuel or a fuel/air mix before it gets to the injector.

However, the technology used to drive the E-TEC injector is completely different from the original Ficht design. E-TECs use a Lorentz (voice) coil to drive the injector ram. This is a much more sensitive, faster, and more powerful way to run the injector than the Ficht system, which uses a mechanical solenoid.

For example, injector pressures in the E-TEC are 33% higher than the Fichts - 600 psi versus 450 PSI - and can be potentially increased to 1000 psi. Injected fuel volumes can be controlled much more precisely. And because the voice coil can be used to both drive and retract the injector ram, the response time of the injector is greatly reduced. The end result is that the E-TEC fuel injection system is capable of much better control over fuel than the original Ficht system, with corresponding improvements in fuel economy, emissions and reliability.

But the things that go into an E-TEC go beyond just the fuel injection system. There are also a number of other design refinements that make them perform more efficiently than Evinrude's older motors.

      <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">The E-TEC piston tops have a patented design feature called a "Re-entrant splash port" which concentrates the injected fuel over the spark plug for better combustion. And the E-TEC pistons are made from a special alloy which is twice as tough as the steel they use in the Ficht engines.

      <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">The E-TEC spark plugs fire three times per cycle to ensure that all fuel is burned.

      <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">E-TECs were designed with oversized crankshafts, connecting rods and gearcases to improve mechanical durability.

      <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">Cylinders are boron nitride honed to eliminate the need for a breakin period.

      <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">Piston sleeves and wrist pins feature an improved design that eliminates piston slap

      <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">Oversized roller bearings are used to reduce wear

      <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1">The Engine Management Module (EMM) is a much more advanced device than the computer in the Fichts, including a much more powerful processor, and denser, more rugged packaging. The software has a lot of on-board diagnostic tools, and tracks engine events in flash memory for analysis by service techs.

    * Use of a magneto-based charging system to allow the engine to run without batteries, if needed

SO...form your own opinion. If you think the above means the E-TEC is just another form of Ficht, then so be it. But that doesn't imply that there will be problems. From our viewpoint, they are different motors.

The Bottom Line: The E-TEC fuel injection systems does share a common design concept with the Ficht fuel injection sysem. But other than that, the E-TECs are a different design that uses a lot of state-of-the-art materials, electronics and manufacturing technologies. To call them modified Fichts is doing the engines a disservice

Marc..

[RickK]

Welcome aboard Masquerade  :!:  :!:

[MarshMarlowe196]

Masquerade-

When I worked at a local dealership while we were still selling Ficht's, we had a name for the engines - "Fix-it" engines.  Though they were about 50-50 (that's being generous) in terms of reliability from one Ficht to the next, my question to you would be-

Do you have to have THIS boat?

With the way the market is today, seems you would be able to find something similar with more reliable, or should I say, more reputable power plants for around the same money, and if it was more, it'd be money well spent.  In my opinion, that is.

We (dealership service dept.) couldn't ever really find a good clear reason as to why these engines failed so frequently, that may be partially due to our frustration with so many engines needing repair and so many repairs returning for repairs.  The rumor mill from OMC said that the original 2-strokey oil formulation wasn't lubricating the engines the way it needed to, so they came out with a different formulation that seemed to fix the problem.  Sometimes.

My $0.02-  If I had a FICHT on my rig, I'd just be waiting for it to fail even if it had given me mostly trouble free service.  There's a lot of value in Peace of Mind.

[Masquerade]

Thanks everyone for your respones.

I really like to layout and roominess of the Aqusport 225 CC but the engines scare the devil out of me from all that I've read and heard.

I think I'll continue to look around for this same boat but with different power.

[bdtsr]

Would this boat be in Absecon, NJ by any chance?