Twin 2001 Mercury 225 Optimax Motors

I had the exact motor except it was a salt water series, and I had my fair share of probems with it.Those optis came out around 1999 or 2000 and maybe the bugs weren't worked out but it ruined me on big Mercs. That being said I have also had a Yam 200 SWS and it ran great.Others that had the 2000-2001 optis had problems also, one guy had a piston explode thru the cowling. What kind of boat and how much are they asking?

Don't have anything to say about the motors, but pics of the boat would be nice. This gonna stay down in Cocodrie? Did something happen to your old man's boat or are you just going bigger?

(no message)

One of the boats I had just sold had a pair of the same.
Problems that I had in 6 years.

1 Alternator
1 Starter due to keyswitch hung up in the start mode
1 motor oil tank( one on the motor )
2 sets of sparkplugs. Very high price plugs that cost around $12 each.
Opitmax oil by the gallon cost $27. There is a 3 gallon on board tank. I was using close to 2.5 gallons for both motors each trip that = to about an avg of 175 miles which = to about 85 gallons of fuel. One should use quickclean as an adative every time you fill up, but I used seafoam instead which does the same thing at half the price.

If you seatrial the boat. Shut off one motor to see if the boat can get up on plane with just one running motor.

Also, before buying, take the boat to a shop and have the computers read so you know how the motors were ran. It breaks it down to each group of RPM's = how long at that. Also it will let you know any red linning (over rev) and a bunch more info.

If you need anymore info, let me know.

Should burn at about what I was burnning. Just under 2 mpg as long as you didn't run it wide open. Best RPM for fuel and speed was at 4100 which = to about 40 mph with a full load of 6 people and gear along with 500 lbs of ice in the hole.

The guy who is selling told me that in a 2 to 2.5 foot chop at 3600, he was getting 30-32 mph and only burning 10 gal/hr. I'm somewhat skeptical on the 10 gal/hr, but who knows. Anything is better than the 25 gal/hr that we are burning in a Mako with old johnsons right now.

Sounds like you are somewhat experienced with these motors. Do you work on them or just know things from experience? I'm kinda skeptical after reading about "problems" that mercury had with these motors in the early 2000s.

Preface: I have an Opti

But...it's a 2006 model. Early 2000s, they called em Opti 'pop' for a reason. Same with the Yammies about the same time...the 2 strokers.

Those issues are fixed...haven't had one single problem with ours since bought new in 2006. We managed to get em to provide a 6 year warranty, which coincidently expires this year. Thing'll probably blow the frick up this summer.

quote:

---

The guy who is selling told me that in a 2 to 2.5 foot chop at 3600, he was getting 30-32 mph and only burning 10 gal/hr. I'm somewhat skeptical on the 10 gal/hr, but who knows

---

That is close to about what they will burn. In my case at that rpm range, I was burnning around 13-14 GPH. My boat was a Baja 28 sportsfishermen which is made the same. The only difference was that my boat had a gill bracket instead of having the bracket built into the hull. My boat was 32 LOA.

quote:

---

Sounds like you are somewhat experienced with these motors. Do you work on them or just know things from experience? I'm kinda skeptical after reading about "problems" that mercury had with these motors in the early 2000s.

---

I had own the same motors. I did most of my service on them as I do all my boats.

As stated above. Make sure the injectors were changed. The old ones were black from Merc. There was a recall that Mec made it good to have the bad injectors changed out. The new color injectors are blue. Also, if you get the motor numbers off, you can call Merc to see if all up dates were done. That and of course a computer read out will tell everything about how the motors were ran.


As one poster stated about repowering. Do the math to see if you did blow a powerhead or lower unit.

Oh, one other problem I forgot was that I had both motor lower units resealed. One did start leaking. That cost about $150 per motor. When it came to that service, I removed both lower units and brought them to a guy that is one of the best service guys on Merc's in Louisiana. He lives in Breaux Bridge. He does all the work for crawfishermen and oil field boats in the basin. His name is Freddy Breaux and if you need is ph, let me know.

If you need more info, let me know.

good luck

Nice