If you are planing to put a 225 Opti on "your" boat....then what is too much horsepower for a single rig??? (Just to clarify the point.) Bob
The brand new 07 Yamaha Vmax 300.. It didn't perform half as good as the 07 Merc 225 Opti. It had no power out of the hole. It couldn't hold a speed to save it's life. The 225 has had a seven man BF Line at 42mph and the 300 had an eight man line at 41. The best part of the whole deal is Yamaha won't buy their own motor back even though it has no hours on it. I won't ever buy a Yamaha.
Dealers who are experienced with the 300 Vmax could have told you that it would not be a good show ski motor, but most have no idea of the need for mid range torque that is the most important thing for speed holding. The majority of big block outboards are purchased solely for top speed. The same 3.3L block that the 300 uses works great for show skiing in the 200 and 225 Vmax, and the 250 may be ok as well. We ran a single 225 for 3 years and it was great, set the speed and forget it with a 15 mirage prop on it. This is typical for the top motor in a given block size. You do not want to use the 2.6L 200 Evinrude as a single engine on a ski boat. The porting and fuel map has been changed to help top end. As for Yamaha taking the motor back, no manufacturer will do that. It simply won't happen.
If you are just looking for amazing hole shots then the more power the better. The ideal tow boat motor (in my opinion) is one that has a completely linear throttle response, like an electric motor. The inboards come close to this. They have the best throttle response. A two stroke motor tends to surge when it come into the power band. If this happens at a speed that you want to ski at, then there is a problem. In general the bigger the power to weight ratio the more pronounced the surge will be. A different pitch prop may help, eliminating the play in the throttle linkage system will help with the small adjustments. I re-contoured the throttle cam on mine to provide more throttle with a little less spark advance which helps with the surge and causes the motor to be slightly less fuel efficient at part throttle. Full advance can still be available at wide open, however mine is a little retarded there too. A binacle with more throw at the handle end will help and I think any binacle could be modified to do that. I have mine to a place that the surge is below even the slowest ski speeds and the throttle is pretty linear in the ski speed range. If all the above fails, and the motor still has non linear response at ski speed then a smaller motor will help. In my opinion, jim
