[THEFERMANATOR]

The controls and steering should hook up to the newer engines, but the harness's changed somewhere in the late 90's when they started offering SMARTCRAFT. You can buy adapters I believe to make it work though. As far as going with an OPTIMAX, I wouldn't unless it's new or still under LOTS of warranty. At the very least don't buy one older than 03 as that is about the time they got most of the bugs worked out. The 150's weren't horrible, but there was a reason they earned the nickname OPTIPOP's. The 04+ have been pretty solid though with the only real issues being belt failures for the air pump that leave you dead in the water, but that is more of a amaintence issue than anything else. As for FICHTS I would stay 03 and newer as well. Persoanlly I like the older engines as I can buy ALOT of gas and parts for what the cost of a new engine is.