Ficht question

[THEFERMANATOR]

The RAM badging was a last ditch effort by OMC just before they were bought out to get the sales numbers up on the FICHT engines and to try and move past the stigma of the FICHT's. Hence whya as soon as BRP took over they got rid of ANYTHING that said FICHT on it first thing even before they changed the design of the engine the first of 03 for the mid year 03's. If you're serious about it I would get the ID numbers off of it and go to an EVINRUDE dealer and have them check to see if all of the factory updates have been performed. Next take it to a qualified shop that knows how to work on a FICHT engine(they are similiar to ETEC's, but still not many can work on them) and have them do a full diagnostic on it and computer print-out of the EMM. Also find out when the EMM was last rebuilt or replaced. By now just about all of the EMM's have failed or are on there way out. And I wouldn't even consider one unless you could take it out and run it hard for at least 30-45 minutes of real world running at 4500+RPM's. Most EMM failures don't show up cold, but show themselves after 20-30 minutes of hard running. And the early warning signs of many is the voltage will run up past 14.8 volts(they have a regulator, but I believe all FICHTS have an EMM circuit to trigger the regulator so they can reach high voltage for start-up and then drop back). I personally decided to keep my carbed engine and set it up for max economy rather than going to a DFI after doing some homework on em. My 225 burns about 2 GPH at a dead idle, and roughly 3-3.5 trolling which is close to double that of a DFI engine, but at cruising speeds my fuel burn is pretty close(roughly 10-11 GPH at 3600-3800 RPM's). A DFI will have it's biggest fuel savings at low RPM's where it is roughly 2-3X more efficient, but at WOT they are only about 10-15% more efficient. At cruise they can be as much as 40% more efficient, but realistically 20-30%. This is true of 4 strokes as well, the faster you run them the lower the efficiency difference between them.

I personally feel that I can buy ALOT of gas for what a simple EMM repair can cost(roughly$1200), not to mention if it needs an injector(about $250 each for a FICHT) and the shop's labor. Just about any repair on a FICHT requires a laptop and the appropriate software to link up with the EMM.