Compact design, to say the least!
It’s hard for us to believe that it’s been ten years since we bought our E-TEC. This is Part 1 of our long-term E-TEC review. We’ll cover what happened, costs, things we liked and things we didn’t like.
Bottom line: Would we buy another? YES. But there’s some pretty stiff competition in the 75-115 HP outboard space now, including much lighter 4-strokes. All would merit some serious additional research before purchasing a new motor.
BACKGROUND
When we first put Toy Boat 2 together back in 2000, we moved our (mostly) trusty 1994 Johnson 90 over from Toy Boat 1.
The Johnson was a pretty good motor, but a bit of a gas guzzler. Toy Boat 1 had been used mostly inland, where we rarely ran more than 15 miles in a long day of fishing. So gas consumption was never an issue.
Our E-TEC 90 after it’s second service – click for larger image
On the other hand, Toy Boat 2 was routinely running 3 times that distance just on the trip out to the fishing grounds. As a result, fuel consumption rose to “OMG this is a problem” status in very short order. Fully loaded, TB2 was sucking up 6-8 gallons/hour, even with a cruising speed of just 20 MPH. Despite a 45 gallon tank, we were stretched to the safety limit on many trips.
By the time we had enough money saved up to consider a repower, Evinrude’s “next-gen” motors had arrived. Using advanced 2-stroke technology and engine electronics, their E-TEC line of outboards promised high fuel efficiency, a better power-to-weight ratio than 4-strokes, exhaust emissions comparable to 4-strokes, and came with a revolutionary 3-year-or-300-hour maintenance schedule.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of controversy about the E-TECs, especially given the fact that Outboard Marine Corporation (which owned both the Johnson and Evinrude brands) essentially went bankrupt due to problems with their Ficht Fuel Injection technology (arguably the precursor for E-TEC).
In any event, we decided to give E-TEC a try, with the idea that a detailed log of what happened over time would be of interest to our readers. This article and the segments that follow represent the conclusion of our study. We hope you’ll find the results of some use.
In this post, we’ll recap Performance and Fuel Consumption. Future posts will address:
PERFORMANCE AND FUEL CONSUMPTION
Overall Performance:
- There were no issues with performance. However, prior to 2014, the 90 E-TECs were only offered in a 3-cylinder model. Our old 90 Johnson was a detuned version of the 4-cylinder 115. The old Johnson ran a bit smoother at idle, whereas our E-TEC 90 actually creates a minor harmonic vibration with the hull. This vibration causes an audible rattling (a fuel hose bumping the inside hull liner), which disappears once we get above idle RPM. I suspect that the 115 and the 90 HO E-TECs, which are 4-cylinder engines, would be fine. The 90 HO was not offered until 2014, and was not an option when we repowered.
- The E-TEC 90 continues to be the lightest engine in its class, although some of the new 90 HP 4-strokes are getting closer (within 50 lbs or so).
- Acceleration is good, as long as the boat has the correct prop.
- Top speed remained in the 32-35 MPH range @5500 RPM, although the engine seems to like to run at slightly higher RPMs than the old Johnson (4500 RPM versus 4000 RPM). This could also be attributed to the 3- versus 4-cyclinder design.
Fuel Consumption:
Click for a larger image
When we first started running the E-TEC, we did some pretty detailed fuel consumption tests, using our GPS and fuel flow gauge. The net results:
- Cruising fuel economy increased by 33% or more
- Idle and trolling fuel economy improved even more dramatically, ranging from a 50% improvement in fuel economy at fast trolling speeds, to almost a 1000% (10x) improvement at slow speeds
- We have not had any issues with spark plug fouling, even when trolling for extended periods. Here’s one of the plugs at the first scheduled maintenance:
E-TEC 90 spark plugs after the 3 year service -click for a larger image
BOTTOM LINE:
Performance was everything we wanted, if not more. The idle-speed harmonic vibration issue was a little bit of a disappointment, but not a big issue, and probably not a fundamental issue with E-TEC design, but rather an issue with 3-cylinder engines in general.
Fuel economy improvement was substantial, and exceeded our expectations.