Shopping 30L vs 43L

"While shopping around for a 1

"While shopping around for a 18ft runabout,2 different people have told me that the 3.0Litre/135hp Mercruiser would not pull up skiers very well.Is this true?My father-in-law has a '85 3.0L/130hp OMC on his 18ft and it will pull up 2 skiers easily.If the Merc. is that much weaker,I'll have to consider a 4.3L/170hp Merc.Please help.Any advice will be greatly appreciated."

"Alan, 135 HP on an 18 footer

"Alan, 135 HP on an 18 footer will give OK performance. You will be able to pull a skier, but you will not get them up as fast as the 4.3L V6. I have a 19 SeaRay with the 205 HP 4.3LM motor/alpha I. It pulls skiers well, but if you also have six passengers, it handles like a barge. If you load up your 135HP powered boat with people, you may not get the skier up!"

With the right prop on the 3.0

With the right prop on the 3.0 you can pull skiers ok. It is also going to get better fuel economy but they usually struggle on larger boats.
In the long run the 4.3 engine will not have to work as hard and will be a smoother quieter ride and you will not have to worry about power or matching up the prop so the RPM's will not exceed the engines capacity. Plus the resale is going to be better. More people want the larger engine.
bottom line is if the boat is longer than 17.5 ft go for the larger engine.

"There are skiers, and then th

"There are skiers, and then there are skiers. Some want their arms yanked out of joint and some are just happy to get up on the skis. However, a 4.3L will definitely do a better job of either and if it's maintained properly, you'll get more on trade/sale. If the motor ever should freeze and you don't get the core deposit back, the 3.0 L will cost a lot more than the 4.3L because so many have been ruined by bad maintenance in the past.

The 4.3L should actually be rated at 190 HP unless it's the LX, in which case it has the 4 BBL carb and is rated at 205 HP. The other reason it would be rated lower is that it's a much older boat. No motor likes to be run at WOT for a long time and the 4.3L will definitely be running at lower RPM for most of the time, compared with the 3.0L, especially under load."

"My recommendation would be fo

"My recommendation would be for the 4.3L. I have a 3.0L that wore out completely in less than 5 years (Reference my Q & A posting titled " 3.0L Bad Engine" from May of this year). The newer 3.0L engines are poorly built and apparently are disposable. There are a number of other postings on this board, which would lead one to the same conclusion. I would even recommend something other than Mercruiser. Although we did us it for skiing, most of my hours were fishing, which is much less demanding and it still needs a complete rebuild. Good luck."