See full version: Mercury unveils new V-6 outboard
The engine will be offered in four colors: traditional Phantom Black and three shades of white called Warm Fusion, Cold Fusion and Pearl Fusion. Polycarbonate trim panels can be finished in silver, blue, red and graphite gray. Mercury will also offer the trim panels in a primed finish that can be painted.
“One of the things that stopped people from getting out on the water is the daily checks, and that meant getting the cowl off,” said David Foulks, chief technology officer for Mercury parent company Brunswick Corp. “We gradually try to work through what are the small irritations and pain points for owners of our products.”
Even when it’s running at wide open throttle, the engine is so quiet the family can talk without yelling. [links]
One of the boats we tested was a Boston Whaler 270 Dauntless. Some might think twin 200-hp outboards on a 4,800-pound boat that measures 27 feet long with a 9-foot beam would be an underpowered situation, and the motors did look kind of small, but they worked. In midrange tests, if a passenger is standing next to the helm when the captain nails the throttles, he will be on the deck if he’s not hanging on. The acceleration is that sudden.
“Every time we put a product into the market, the way our product development people measure it is how are we responding to what boaters really care about,” said Mercury Marine president John Pfeifer. The marine industry is always looking for ways to make it easier to go boating and this is yet another example.
“This is more in the sweet spot of the mainstream,” Pfeifer said of the new V-6. “But we invest an enormous amount of money in a lot of programs, and this is not the only introduction we’re going to have in 2018.”
What the load and hull affect is how fast you're going at WOT, and therefore MPG. Although the GPH will be the same, a lighter, more efficient hull will go faster and therefore further for the same amount of gas burned at WOT. MPG, not GPH is better.
But it is (@ WOT, anyway). Wait, you said mpg . no way. It's gph (gallons per hour). and 4.8 gph is about right.
Acually, weight and hull design -theoretically, and in my experience - do not affect the GPH at all at WOT. GPH is simply a function of how much gas it takes to produce the horsepower. It will be the same with a slow boat or a fast boat. [links]
I think the formula is HP/10 = Gallons in 1 Hour, so a 40hp will burn roughly 4 gallons in 1 hour at wide open throttle. Your weight and hull design will affect this figure too. Lower throttle settings may give better mileage, as long as you are up on plane and the timing at its most advanced position.
after you get it figured out best too use a 1/3 fuel rule.Freshwater lakes are not too bad but several years ago I had a 225 on a 22' boat,I went out about 20 miles in gulf , nice calms seas an no rain in forcast.Used about 17 gal. fuel(60 gal tank.A thick fog bank rolled in on us an had too drive at a reduced speed coming back in,couldn't even see the bow of the boat, almost ran out of gas before I got back too the ramp. motors have a sweet spot for the best fuel useage.
Yamaha has a site called: Yamaha Outboard Performance Bulletins, you plug in your boat, motor, HP, etc. and it gives you MPG, GPH, MPH on a chart for the rig at all RPM's and speeds. This may help you get an idea about your motor's fuel mileage, performance, best cruise speed/RPM.
Thanks to MRL Marine having rigged two 9m 900GTs – one with the outgoing 200hp supercharged Mercury Verado and the other with Mercury’s latest 225hp V6 (as featured in the last issue) – we were able to see how Mercury’s claims for their new engine stack up. Having tested the 900GT with twin 200hp Verados, I know they work very well on this boat. I have also tested two of the new 225hp V6s on the back of an XO270, which impressed with the broad spread of power these motors put out. However, the Stingher 900GT and the XO270 are very different boats.
Having said that, the Verado boat is also quick, but the figures recorded by us on both boats show that the new engines push a Stingher 900GT up to 30mph (26 knots) about half a second quicker than a pair of 200hp Verados. You may well say this is splitting hairs and nigh on impossible to gauge accurately, but this half-second margin increased to 2 seconds when we recorded a zero to 50mph (43 knots) time. When we did a rolling run from 26 knots to 43 knots, the naturally aspirated V6-powered Stingher was 1 second quicker. Another interesting aspect that was thrown up is that the V6-powered boat could hold planing speed down to 15 knots, while the other boat dropped off the plane at just over 16 knots. All I can say on this matter is that with a pair of 216kg V6s, compared to the earlier-generation supercharged 200hp Verados, you have 30kg less hanging off the transom. One thing is for sure, the new engine is relatively quiet. However, when you really want to hear it, when accelerating hard, it has a healthy V6 growl. Multi-chamber mufflers keep the noise down, and routing the exhaust down through the middle of the 64-degree V gives the engines a slim profile, enabling them to be mounted just 26 inches centre to centre. A simple but very effective feature is the service hatch in the top of the cowl. This enables quick oil checks and refilling, as well as providing a single-lever catch to facilitate removal of the top cowl. [links]
The first impression of any boat is generally how quickly it gets up onto the plane. That initial low-down grunt felt when you push the throttles home is generally a good indication of how things are going to progress. In this department, the 900GT powered by the new V6 is very quick off the mark, with a relentless spread of power all the way up to 6000rpm. The only comparable engine I have experienced that competes in low-down power is the 2-stroke 200hp BRP E-Tec G2. By the nature of being a 2-stroke, this engine will always be hard to beat in torque terms.
Our back-to-back test was as near clinical as a marine engine test could be. The boats were identical, bar the fact that the boat fitted with the new V6s had an extra pair of seats and an extra 100 litres of fuel over the Verado-powered boat. As the pictures show, the sea conditions in Southampton Water were as identical as you could get them. All performance runs were two-way averages to account for tidal conditions. MRL Marine are meticulous in their prop testing, with the assistance of Neil Holmes. After the best part of a week trying different propellers, they finally settled on the optimum prop for the new V6, as they had previously done with the Verado engines fitted to the 900GT. [links]
700RPM idle – 0.7 litres per hour more
Suzuki DF 200
6000RPM (WOT) 40 knots – 69.74 L/hour here
The Yamaha, Suzuki and Optimax all require an initial 20 hour service and then a service once a year or every 100 hours.