Suzuki School
 

I'm in Suzuki school this week, at the Wyotech facility in Ormond Beach(Daytona), Fla. This new 350 is pretty serious. Anyone have any questions I need to ask these guys?So far, not any changes on the 115-140. 150 and up get the digital throttle and shift. The 350 is the hot topic, with some suggestions of higher hp in the future

Have they changed their aluminum to lessen the corrosion problems of the older models? :head:

I brought up corrosion several times, got a more or less non telling answer. For the most part they said they have been working on corrosion control and have improved it on their engines. Unofficially, Yamaha and Suzuki both use the same raw aluminum supplier. There was no single answer to the question. I'm seeing an increase in corrosion on all engines. I blame this on regulations in the casting industry. Mercury had the best aluminum but you'll notice they don't advertise the XK360 alloy any more. Since they closed down the Stillwater plant, I'm seeing an increase in corrosion, especially on their lower units. Ive done plenty of exhaust replacements on Yamaha V6's, and the majority of two stroke Yamaha 3 cylinder engines I'm seeing have the head corroded thru, followed closely by the exhaust cavity eating a hole thru. The mid size Yamaha and Merc 4 strokes are Chinese manufactured power heads and I'm seeing corrosion clogging the water passages, but it seems to be more of a design flaw than an alloy issues. I haven't seen enough newer Suzuki's personally to base an opinion on, so I asked some of the other techs. Two of whom are based in Florida and have been selling the newer ones for a while. They said they haven't seen any more corrosion on the Suzukis than any other brand except for Honda(still the worst). Very few Etecs to measure by, so they weren't included.

So an older Merc 2 stroke still has the best corrosion resistance? What years would that include? :head:

Mercury closed the Stillwater plant in 2011, but I was seeing unusual corrosion on them as early as 2004. Ive seen 25 year old mercs looking better than 3 year old newer ones. If you're going 2 stroke, its hard to beat a mid 90's 2.5 liter 150/175/200. Good cheap power, light weight, like fuel, but no more than any other engine built then. Ditch the oil injection unless its been gone thru recently. I'm hoping Suzuki has got their issues taken care of, as I'm selling them now

My V21 is powered by a 1993 200hp 2.5L Merc. If you recall I ditched the original oil injection which was still working fine for an electronic oil injection system. I really haven't seen any corrosion on the engine yet. I power wash it when I get home and the long 21 mile drive upriver to where I launch/retrieve the boat completely flushes the internal engine with sweet water. Yes, the engine is thirsty, but not overly so, and she just keeps purring along.

Only part that had a rot problem on that vintage merc was the steering arm. My 20 year old 150 was still in good shape in 2014 when i got the 4S. I don***8217;t think the new motor will last as long, but i probably won***8217;t either

Hey Phat. How's the power/gas consumption on that 4s @150hp? Most of my fishing is in the ocean and really because of waves it's rare if I ever get up to 40mph much less 50.

I am averaging around 4 mpg. Cruise around 34 mph. Top end light is 42, topend average load is 38.

any word of an inline 4, 225 HP Suzuki coming ?

For what they charge for a new engine, no matter the manufacturer, it would be nice to not have it rot out before it's usable lifespan and maybe they could employ a nation known for more high quality production than china.

I dont think they'll be able to do that without a blower. Right now, all teh 4 cylinder 200's regardless of brand are getting a reputation of being weak, personally I think its undeserved, but comparing them to V6 engines that were underrated at 200 isn't fair

one thing Suzuki did say,was their motors are completely built in Japan, all of them from the lowest hp to the top

Personally I'd love to see an outboard made in Germany. Way back in the 70's-80's I had a boat with a 350 GM engine on it married to a BMW outdrive. It just seems to me that a country so well known for precision engineering should be able to produce an outboard of the same high quality. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part? :head:

how about Sweden?

Yup. I was thinking of Sweden (Saab)(Volvo) when I wrote that, but even they pale before the precision or German engineering. (IMHO)

I don't know if I would use the bmw drive as a good reference. Everything I've read on them says they were nightmares. I do think there is a German company designing a diesel outboard.

yea, the BMW drives did not have a good reputation, The OXE diesel outboard is Swedish, the COX diesel outboard is English

English diesel outboard? Please tell me they didn t use Lucas for the electrical components

And since when has an English piece of machinery been simple to work on or easy to find decently priced parts?

que the warm beer jokes :beer:

The reason for the warm beer and the electrical problems is they used Smiths for their gauges :hide:


I have a 1973 BSA 441 Victor motorcycle that has Lucas, Smiths, and Amal parts on it. So aside from the fact that the shift and the brake are on the opposite sides of all other bikes, I'm plagued with
Lucas, the God of Darkness
Smiths, the God of Non-functioning
and
Amal, the only carburetor that I know of that you actually need to have raw gas pour out of the throat in order to start the engine.
Gotta love the British...

Truthfully, in the 2-3 years I had that boat (25' John Allmand) I never had any problems with the BMW outdrive. The block cracked on me after a very cold winter and I had not drained it properly, (my fault) and that spelled the end for me and that boat, but the outdrive preformed flawlessly during that time.

Lucas makes refrigerators also

Yes, and Smiths makes the gauges that are used to fix the Lucas compressors... hence the warm beer. LOL

That's funny right there, lol!

Neander shark is the German company building diesel outboards. They're building smaller 2 cylinder diesel outboards, and according to Yanmar, they're building there new diesel outboard as well. It's a quite interesting design with dual crankshafts, four rods, and 2 pistons.

http://www.yanmarmarine.com/dtorque/

Interesting. But at 385 lbs for a 50 hp that's significant for a lot of applications.:head:

It's compareable to a 75hp gas outboard, so that 385 lbs makes it lighter than my 75hp Honda I had on my carolina skiff. There was talk of pushing them up to 70hp to compete with 90hp gas outboards.