Honda BF90
Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:54 am
I 'm looking into this motor
Does anyone have any reviews or comments
Does anyone have any reviews or comments
Honda makes a great product, but they are a heavier motor than a Merc or Yamaha 4 stroke if you are comparing them. Honda has been making the their 4 stroke motors since 1962 so they are doing something right. Very reliable. Are you looking at new or used and what year.
Let me know if you have any more questions, I will try to answer them.
Cheers
JP
Honda has been making four strke engines since WW!!. They know what they are doing with respect to building engines. If I had my pick of 4 stroke I would pick Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha/Merc. Bombardier's 4 stroke is a Suzuki. Honda has alot of technology to make them run well in the water environment and the problems associated with running them on the back of a boat. It's the same as in bike rcing when the push started to go to 4 strokes. The dynamic balance of a 4 stroke engine is not the same as a 2 stroke. 
A large amount of this technology came from motorcylces as well as from racing not from experience in building outboards. If you look at the numbers of outboards built off-shore(over there) and the amount sold in NA 20 years ago, at that time Yamaha was the largest manufacturer not retailer. One of the largest if not the largest manufacturer of outboards is Tohatsu. Ever heard of them. NA compared to the world #'s of outboard sales is at times in significant. My point being Honda hands down has the most R&D going for their motors, sometimes price can be an issue. Suzuki offers the best compromise between technology and price because there is always a price for technology. Yamaha/Merc need to rethink because that is a big heavy motor they have and Merc is looking elsewhere for there slice of the pie. They are selling 4 stroke engines for EPA credits in the US. Thats why they bought most of the R&D from Yamaha. Merc I think is going to try and push OPTI and Verado in the 4 stroke line not NA( normally aspirated 4 strokes) It is really hard to get a 4 stroke to perform low end grunt work, planing a boat and top end speed via the constraints the outboard provides. Thus turbo or supercharging means you can make a smaller, lighter and have lots of HP as well. With the supercharge it comes on right away but the cost if FUEL, so there may not much of a difference. FACT in order to get the same HP from a 4 stroke as 2 stroke it has to have more displacemant in the engine, that means it has to be bigger. Bigger pistons, rods, crank, heads etc so for every intact stoke it takes in more fuel than a 2 srtoke of the same HP IF AND ONLY IF that 2 stroke is Direct-Injected(DI). Now to go a bit further that 4 stroke will exponentially burn fuel at a rate similar to the DI engine, the difference is going to be the power to weight ratio which is always beter on a 2 stroke. So buy the Honda make sure you understand the warranty and if you are repowering from a 2 stroke of the same size you may end up going a few MPHs slower, thats life in the 4 stroke lane. In our lifetime there will always be 2 stroke outboards.