Optimax help

[Gerry Zagorski]

There are issues with most high pressure 2 stroke engines in the 99 - 2001 class outboards.... All the manufactures rushed to get them to market to conform with the new emmission standards and they were all blowing power heads like mad.

Evenrude had 2 stoke Ficht - no longer available and replaced with Etec

Mercury had 2 stroke Optimax - now they are pushing Verado 4 strokes

Yamaha had 2 stroke HDPI and they are now pushing 4 strokes.

Just check out the used boat listings with the motors listed above and you will see they are selling on the cheap for the reasons above.

I would steer clear of any of these motors and if I happened to have one and had a failure I would cut my losses and repower with a different motor rather then sink more money into them. If you can't afford new power and want to save some money I would consider repowering with with the straight older technology EFI 2 strokes (non pressure injected).

[Suckafish]

Who did u end up using I have mercurys and just got them and need good mechanics in case of problems

[Gerry Zagorski]

Fly - If you're still having issues, first place I would look is the fuel lines.

I had a buddy that was struggling with a simialr issue and it turned out to be a 6 inch piece of fuel line he negelcted to replace. That section of line would collapse and cut off his fuel.

The other thing that could cause fuel flow issues is the tank not being vented properly. One simple way to test it is to run the boat with the fuel fill open.

If all else fails, one way to see if its your tank and lines are the issue is to run the engines off protable tanks. If they run fine off the prtables, then you know the issue isn't your engine.