Evinrude vs Mercury

I recently had a local boat dealer and Evinrude enthusiast give me strong
lecture on the virtues of how Evinrude had done the super clean high
performance direct injection thing first with their FICHT engines. I had
commented on the number of Evinrudes that had blown up for a few years.

His comment was that Mercury was having the same problem with their Optimax
that Evinrude had with their FICHT engines, but Evinrude had been doing it
longer and they were over their problems with the new technology.

I was just reading an article in a 1998 Bassin' magazine. They were talking
about how Mercury had added some new HP sizes to their Optimax line that
year, and that FICHT engines had started showing up on bass rigs the year
before.

So exactly how much longer has Evinrude been playing with direct injection
technology. That article makes it seem like they were both introducing the
technology to the market at nearly the same time. Even if Evinrude was a
year ahead that was 6-7 years ago. Its always interesting to see the way
people's passions can color their memory and/or view point. (I admit I am
not immune from this.)

Now of course my serious interest in this subject is more contemporary than
that, but I found the comments, and the article very interesting.


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