Replaced My Mercury Motor
July 13, 2007
Last Picture Of My Old Motor
In May 2007 my 1993 Mercury 200hp XRi started having major problems getting up to speed. It turns out that I had
poor compression in five cylinders and
zero compression in the sixth. Uh oh. Two mechanics said that the
motor was shot. My 1993 Ranger bass boat was in good shape so I opted to replace the motor instead of buying a new
(or used) boat. But new engines are terribly expensive - a brand new Mercury Optimax 200hp costs around $15,000
installed! And
used motors that are in good shape are very hard to find, especially the Mercury EFI which
was the engine I was most interested in.
The 2003 Mercury 200hp EFI
Luckily my buddy Jeff Cotten called a marine shop down in Houston and they said that they had recently sold a
2003 Mercury 200hp EFI to Shaver Street Marine in Pasadena, TX. So I called Shaver and I was able to buy the motor
for a third the cost of a new one. The onboard computer revealed that the motor only had 47 hours on it and that
the RPM's were never abused. The previous owner had the motor on a 21-foot Champion bass boat and wanted a 250hp
engine to push that heavy boat faster. So I pulled my boat all the way down to Pasadena early one morning and the
mechanics swapped engines in 4 hours and I was home that night. The next day Jeff and I tested it out on Lake Fork.
It ran great! Even with two full tanks of gas and two people in the boat, it hit 60mph without any problem. I could
have gone even a little faster but I didn't want to push it. At 60mph it was only turning 5200 RPMs, which is
pretty darn good. There's a little missing paint on the skeg, but other than that the engine looks brand new. And
the red Mercury decal looks pretty good with my red boat. With any luck, this engine will last many years. Knock on
wood...
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