# Repowering



## hnt4food (Oct 28, 2009)

I have an 88 115 Johnson that gave up the ghost so I need to replace it. My boat is a 19' walkaround with a 140 hp max rating. I am looking at the 115 4 stroke mercury, 115 evinrude e-tec and 135ho evinrude etec. Does anyone have any experience with these motors and local shops that work on them?


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## trackerputnam (Dec 21, 2014)

Ok, first I must say I am bias a bit,



















that said you really only have one choice of the three you just mentioned, and that would be the Evinrude ETEC 135HO. Number one reason is that you can not go wrong maxing your HP rating on your boat. No one has ever complained about having too much horsepower. The dock is awash with those that wish they had gone with more power. The 135HO will give you an out put of around 145HP.

Not only that but the ETEC will be lighter than the Mercury! It looks like around 40lbs. And contrary to popular opinion, the ETEC is a cleaner running motor. Yea I know, 4 strokes are thought to be cleaner but are by far dirtier and to an extent dangerous. In the 225hp motor of both engines, the ETEC out puts only 600ppm of CO. The Mercury puts out 25000ppm. These are at idle numbers.

The danger of CO poisioning is way off the charts with the 4 stroke, where the Etec is hardly a concern. The mercury is one of the closest motors as far as CO output at speed though, although still a distant 3rd place. ETEC= 63.5 total emissions at speed. Honda= 117.07, Mercury= 121.2, Mercury Supercharged= 146.84, Suzuki= 213.33, and bringing up the rear is Yamaha at 212.6. These numbers are HC+NOx+CO.

And please dont let friends tell you that 2Strokes are not allowed on some lakes! Evinrude ETECs are the recipient of so many Clean Air rewards that the others have not received. ETECs are Lake Bodensee compliant! So you say? Well Lake Bodensee is considered the cleanest lake in the world. Also, patrol boats at Lake Tahoe use ETECs, and that lake is very pro-active in enviromental concerns.

OK, lastly, I wish I had a dollar for everytime someone has gotten on my boat and said, "Start those motors and lets get out of here," while the motors are happily running a few feet from them. And when pulling skiers or whatever you do with your boat, the torque can not be compared. I know some of the people involed with the following video. And after it was produced, Mercury said they were going to "sue" but their lawyers sugested they try the same tug a war and prove the video wrong. They could not and dropped the suit!






Ok, one more thing, my son got a 115 ETEC but did not listen to Dad when I said get the 150. He wishes he had now, I guess 46mph is not fast enough!


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## 30-06-hunter (Sep 22, 2013)

ETEC gets my vote as well, once our 1990 model year 200hp Johnson dies we will replace it with an ETEC. Could be awhile though because the Johnson only has about 70 hours on it since a complete rebuild and runs nicely.


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