Evinrude Ficht

[Sinker]

Anyone have one, or know anything about these engines?? Any good??

 

Specifically an early 2000 model, 90HP.

 

S.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Sinker

[irishfield]

The only guy I know here that has one is thecraftyprince ! Send Graham a PM...

[HTHM]

Stay away, they tend to blow up.

[Sinker]

I don't see them too often. Never ran a 'rude before......I'm a little curious.

 

S.

[irishfield]

That said Shayne.. doesn't look like Graham came over onto the new board. You can get him on Raf's board though.

 

I haven't heard a lot of good things about them...

[muskymatt]

I've got a '99 ficht 115 and have had it since 2004. Other that regular maintenance and the odd expected part upgrade I can't complain how it has lasted.

My mechanic tells me it has high hrs but I take care of it and have a kicker so I am able to keep the hrs minimal from here on in. It purrs like a kitten , has great hole shot and is quiet and great on gas...that said they do have a reputation to pop with high hrs if not taken care of. But for an 11 year old engine with almost 4500 hrs I guess it has lasted pretty well.

 

I do plan on upgrading next year to an etech....which I would have done this year if my piece of junk trailblazer hadnt run me for 6k of repairs since December 09.

[fish_fishburn]

The FICHT line of motors put OMC into bankruptcy. Need I say more.

[Sinker]

The FICHT line of motors put OMC into bankruptcy. Need I say more.

 

Do you have one yourself?

 

I'm getting mixed reports on them, from a lot of different sources. Some say they blow up, some say they last forever......I should just stick with what I know.

 

S.

[dagoat_1]

I have the same motor yr and hp you are talking about. I purchased second hand and was hesitantg as you until i did some research. The "blowing up" is only on the 150 and up motors. Do some research yourself on sites like iboats.com and you can see for yourself. This has been my best outboard yet but I do work on my own toys so maintenance is allways done. If you do get it, purchase the scanning connection cable and take your laptop with you before you buy and you will see the true hr's of the motor or any trouble codes the computer has thrown. Worth the 50 bucks and you can find them on ebay from a guy that sells them out of Kingston or Belleville (its been awhile)

[walleyemen]

I run a 04 johnson 150 h.p, if you do the research you will find all problems with that motor happened within the first 1oo hrs, i;m guessing the one you looking at should be over that, and it was mostly with the 99 models, check out the boards on bassboat central ,you will find everything you need to know,using a good grade oil is a must in these as well, xd-50 or 100 synthetic, you need to know for sure as the engine needs to be programed to run 1 or the other, i run the xd-100 and it'll run you around $53 a gallon, the 50 is a little less, but the engine uses more of it, almost double, so really it makees sense to use the 100, just my opinion!

Wayne

P.s i love the way my johnson performs,best engine yet that i have owned, i will never purchase a merc ever again!

(Wow that doesn't sound right eh)

[SlowPoke]

I'm not an Evinrude fan but there were certain models prone to failure. Mostly high HP models and Pre 2000. My wife's uncle has a 2001 150 on his 196 Princecraft and I'm thoroughly impressed with the power and fuel economy. In the first year he did have plug fouling issues; this was from trolling and not having the plugs indexed correctly. Since then, easy starting and clean running!

 

Here's my take on it;

If you were looking to repower a boat with a used motor, keep looking.

If you found the boat you want and it happens to have a ficht, don't run away without research. Just be aware that you may have to convince someone "it's the good ficht" if you decide to sell it.

[hirk]

It was the bigger block 200/225's that were bad.The 60* v-4's and v-6's were very good as long as they had the injector upgrade done (2000yr service bulletin I think).That engine can only run @ 50-1 ratio it was BRP that came out with the xd50-100 oiler setting later.

[Bernie]

This subject always seems to stir controversy.

I have a 175 that has been flawless over 6 or 7 summers of use.

Actually we have had very few issues with Ficht or E-tec in our shop.

General consensus among our mechanics is they are a very good engine.

Fuel economy, lightweight and excellent power to weight ratio.

I'm glad with the low water levels that mine isn't a four stroke this year.

[Fish Farmer]

The FICHT line of motors put OMC into bankruptcy. Need I say more.

 

Thats what I was told also, and I was a OMC man all the way. Now if I was looking for a 2 stroke, I'd be looking at the Etec. For a 4 stroke, I have 2 honda's but I be looking at the Merc or Suzuki. I've been in Spiel's boat and I can tell you, his Merc 75 HP tiller 4 stroke is way quieter than my Honda 50 tiller.

But that is my opinion.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Fish Farmer

[msp]

Sinker,

My Father had a 115, year 2000 for about 10 years and had many problems. It seemed every spring it was in for some kind of fixing. possibly a lemon?

My father is not that mechanically inclined so there was always lots of unanswered troubleshooting. During the cold months it was always trouble trying to start it. He has since bought a Yamaha 150 and says it seems like a world of differance. just letting you know........

[Bernie]

The FICHT line of motors put OMC into bankruptcy. Need I say more.

 

Trouble began at OMC long before the Ficht came along.

The engineers at OMC were very talented people.

Unfortunately there were many other issues at hand.

[thecraftyprince]

2001 75HP

 

many hours hot weather freezing cold weather rainy weather windy weather

 

lots of trolling (greasers/mucksi/walters)

 

always starts, most time first or second crank

 

very quiet

 

great hole shot, even with an aluminum prop

 

smelly down wind (damn two strokes)

 

expensive oil and service

 

next motor is going to be an etec or whatever replaces them

 

DFI RULES BROTHER !!!

 

I should have prefaced this testimonial with the fact I've never owned anything else and have no benchmark to compare against

[fishinfool]

Sinker

I have a friend with a 1999 Evinrude 150 ficht.

The specific problems with that model are that the powerheads needed to be replaced due to bad injector placement in the head.

The easy fix was to index the spark plugs so that they faced a specific direction away from the injectors, my buddy puts 2 to 3 sets of

plugs in it yearly because they foul a lot when not running at WOT.

There are many articles on these 1999 models with the problem.

As far as I know it was only that year on a few of the bigger hp models that were affected.

It just happened that the year after the company had those issues, they had the buyout. I don't think the two were related though.

My buddy still thinks the motor is a great motor and runs real strong when not having plug problems.

Here is a site if you want to get some solid info on a specific year or model.

 

http://www.marineengine.com/boat-forum/forumdisplay.php?f=26

 

Good Luck

Stan

[irishfield]

2001 75HP

 

many hours hot weather freezing cold weather rainy weather windy weather

 

lots of trolling (greasers/mucksi/walters)

 

always starts, most time first or second crank

 

very quiet

 

great hole shot, even with an aluminum prop

 

smelly down wind (damn two strokes)

 

expensive oil and service

 

next motor is going to be an etec or whatever replaces them

 

DFI RULES BROTHER !!!

 

I should have prefaced this testimonial with the fact I've never owned anything else and have no benchmark to compare against

 

well there he is.... don't know why I couldn't find you in the members listing!