Update at bottom of page.

My youngest son and I would like to start exploring some of the larger lakes, Black, Mullet, Burt, etc in northern Michigan. We have a 1980s Alumacraft F14 utility boat with a 1983, 9.9hp Honda BH100. Right now it goes 15mph with both of us and our gear. We’re going to add a casting platform to the bow and possibly a trolling motor. While the boat is rated for 35hp, I’m thinking it was designed around the weight of a 35hp 2-stroke or about 150 pounds. Should I stick with motors around that weight or less?

In looking, I’m finding 20hp motors are around 330ccs and weigh 95-111 pounds. Then,there’s a 25Hp, 432cc, 126 pound Yamaha or the recently announced 30HP, 500cc, 128 pound Tohatsu. The Yamaha and all the 20hp models are two cylinders while the Tohatsu is three. Yamaha’s 747cc 30hp motor weighs 214 pounds.

The Yamaha and Tohatsu have variable rpm control for trolling with the Yamaha having 50rpm increments and the Tohatsu having 100rpm increments.

In Florida, we have a Lund SSV16 utility boat with a 30hp Suzuki that weigh 165 pounds. It gets us around in the Keys and on the Peace River fine. We have yet to add a casting platform to the bow.

Going with there’s no replacement for displacement and staying around 150 pounds or less, it seems like the Tohatsu will be the way to go when they actually start showing up. Am I wrong? Am I missing something else here?

For those that don’t know, Tohatsu Marine is a joint venture between the Japanese company, Tohatsu, and the American company, Brunswick. Brunswick owns Mercury Marine and Mercury’s smaller outboards are manufactured by Tohatsu Marine in Japan.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189,

Belay my last - wrong F-14

The dash makes a difference, doesn’t it? I changed the title to be less ambiguous. How sad is it that when I take my F14 out, I think, “I feel the need, the need for speed”? My oldest son and I got buzzed by a couple of A-10s once while out in Lake Huron. I told my son they wished they had F-14s.

I doubt I'll be much help. My son has fished Burt Lake extensively for 15 years. He has a 16 foot Lund Fury with a 40HP Mercury 4 stroke, maximum for his boat. He certainly appreciates the horse power for getting from place to place on the lake so I get why you want to put more ponies on your 14ft.Alumacraft. I'm a bit confused by the fact that you already have another boat with the horsepower you want. Is it not suitable for your purpose? Whatever you do to set up for fishing in northern Michigan, enjoy your time in that beautiful part of Michigan.

I’m sorry. I edited my post a few times and the part about the Lund being down in Florida disappeared. I’ll fix that.

I think it would depend on your marine dealer on which outboard. My last two motors have been Yamaha and Suzuki, both excellent, and I have an very good dealer. I'm not familiar with the lakes you'll be fishing but I would stick with something in that weight for your boat. FWIW, I fish 3-4 weeks a season in the US and Canada on all different size lakes and I've never seen a Tohatsu, ever, and don't know a thing about them. If you are confident that your dealer can service and support your purchase would be the determining factor in my mind.

Good point. They are all 40 miles away or more by road.

My last purchase was Yamaha and I'm a Yamaha snob now. But here's my Suzuki story....bought a new 50HP to put on an old 16.5' Lund Mr. Pike in 1998 and ran it for 5 years, sold it to a friend that travels with our group and he still has it. He changed spark plugs about 8 years ago, changes oil and filter each season and it still looks and runs like new. I'm a Suzuki believer too.

I'm not a boater anymore (LOL but I want to be). I think you're probably correct in keeping it under 150#, regardless of power. I thought Tohatsu manufactured small outboards for Honda but bought their larger ones from Honda?
I was recently boating in Ft Lauderdale and the Bahamas and naturally took notice of all the boats and their engines. By *far* Yamaha was the most prevalent with Mercury a distant second and Suzuki a distant third. I only recall seing 2 Honda's which surprised me.

Buy one that is fuel injected, not carbureted.

No problem with gas drying out in the carb bowl in a FI motor.

I would go with the largest HP allowed HP for your boat. I would also consider 4 stroke so you can troll. Those three lakes ae big enough that wather can be a big factor. My son was on Mullt this weekend in my boat and had four foot waves.

Jim

Four footers had to be fun. The lake we are on is a bit bigger than Mullet and we were tubing and wakeboarding over the weekend. The wind was offshore so we were in the lee.

Fuel injected for sure which knocks the Hondas out.

There are no 2-strokes available in the US as they don’t meet EPA approval.

My understanding is that Tohatsu outboards 140hp and up are Hondas.

Nissan branded outboards were all made by Tohatsu.

I don’t know the cut off, but Mercurys under a certain hp are all made by Tohatsu with some variations in features. In fact, I missed it, but just saw that Mercury also just announced a new, lighter 30hp motor. It has the same 500cc displacement, high output alternator, lower unit gear ratio, variable idle for trolling, and even a removable drip tray under the oil filter as the new 30hp Tohatsu. The big difference is the Mercury has a more adjustable tiller and a different cowling.

I think the Mercury with the better tiller is now what I’ll look for.

Find a good Merc dealer and you may be on your way....good luck whatever you do.

I think a 20 or 25hp would be perfect. I agree efi. I think most in that range would be efi.

*UPDATE*

Two years later and I finally pulled the trigger on a 25hp Tohatsu. They and their Mercury counterparts were new and not available in 2022 and last year we picked up some jetskis.

I settled on the 500cc 25hp Tohatsu. The 30hp version is the exact same motor but rated at more rpm. Out of the hole, they’ll be the same, but the 30hp will have a couple of mph at the top which just isn’t worth the $700 price difference to me. The 20hp Tohatsu is 333cc, weighs 30lbs less, and $400 less. I figure a 50% increase in displacement is a performance increase worth $400.

The Yamaha weighs 2lbs less, has two instead of three cylinders, only 433cc, and a few hundred dollars more.

Even though the Mercs are built by Tohatsu, Merc wants $1,000 more for their 25hp. Their 20hp is the same price.

I’ll update with pics and impressions after it gets here, I’ve installed it, and run it through the break-in. I’m fairly sure it’ll be an upgrade over the 1983 10hp 198cc Honda 20” shaft on a 15” transom motor it’s replacing.

That should be a perfect motor for your boat. What did it cost? New outboards are outrageously expensive. Is it a long shaft?
Used to be $100 a hp for years. Now more like $175 per hp

If you were content with your old motor for all those years ,
You will be very happy with a 15 h.p. or 20 h.p.

My dad bought the boat, motor, and trailer years ago for $1,500. It’s the wrong motor for the boat as the boat has a 15” transom and the motor is a long shaft. It would push the boat at 17mph with just me and one kid, but 13 mph with the whole family when the kids were 4, 6, and 10. They’re all teenagers now.

My youngest and I have been using it for fishing a couple small lakes that are no wake, but he wants to hit the big lakes up here. For example, Mullett Lake is 10 miles long and 4 miles across. We’re bringing more gear, coolers, trolling motor and such, plus his buddy is coming up in July. It’s time for a bigger motor. I can do that since it’s my boat now.

It was $3,400 to my driveway. No lift gate, but I figure my sons and can get it from the trailer to the bed of my truck by sliding down the ramps we use for loading the ATV into my truck.

I think you'll be happy with that. I have no experience with 4-stroke outboards, but my 25HP Evinrude 2 stroke scoots my 16' aluminum boat around just fine. I can do 20-21mph with me, two of the kids, and the dog, or 23-25 with just me in calm water.

Put a little over two break in hours on it yesterday. After two hours, you can run WOT for one minute every ten minutes. First run, 29mph with me, my son, and 6 gallons of gas in 1’ chop with 2’ rolling swells. It was a bit squirrelly, but I believe it will settle down when we add gear.

I set the motor with the anti-ventilation in line with the bottom of the boat, but that place the clamp bolts right at the top of the transom. If that’s where it’s supposed to be, I’ll have to come up with a better way to mount the motor. I’m going to run it today without the spacer I used to raise the motor and see how that affects things. With the motor resting directly on the top of the transom, the anti-ventilation plate is 2” below the bottom of the boat.

I bought a cheap induction tach to keep track of RPMs during break in. It has a wire you wrap around a spark plug wire to pick up every time the plug fires and multiplies that by 4 to get RPM. I assume it would work great if the motor had spark plug wires, but it has stick coils for each spark plug. I bought it before the motor was delivered. I wrapped the wire around the trigger wires for the bottom stick coil and it seems to work only if I’m holding the display in my hand. As soon as I set it down or stick it to the velcro I put on the tiller, it show 0.