Thread: Fuel injected 2st outboards.

Hi , IMO both are a good outboard. First thing to do is check the compression . As Well as the condition of things like gear oil( no water in the gear case), spark plugs (these can tell you a lot about how the engine has been running).
The amount of corrosion is another tell tail sign on how it has been looked after and serviced. . I have been a marine mechanic for 12 years . When I worked in California I got my hand on a lot of optimax outboards . Brilliant t motor ! The only issues I ever had was with one . It kept on chewing up alternator belts. Turns out at one point it had snapped the bolt securing the alt . Hen the owner removed the pulley to get the dent out of it.unknown to him that they a so well balanced that when he put the pulley back it threw out the harmonics . It kept breaking the bolt chewing the belts. 4 belts and 4 bolts later when he brought it to us it was that plugged up with rubber it had insulated the spark plugs. 20 cans of power tune later and numerous runs on the dyno it was signing like a bird . I only had my hands on then Vmax once so I can't vouch for its reliability but I have never heard of any issues . Both have been around a while . But as every thing second hand it's always a gamble . Cheers josh

Thanks for the advice. I figured the Merc would probably be a good thing. The thing that drew my attention to the Yammy was the price but I've never heard of or seen a HPDI Vmax before so I was a bit wary that they might have been the black sheep of the Yamaha stable.