Verado ECM reflash/Mercury ECO Enertia Prop

[skytour]

We recently upgraded our Verado 250's with Simon Motorsports ECM reflash (Whipple Superchargers has a similar program) and changed out our Revolution 14 5/8" x 21" pitch 4-blade props for Mercury's new larger ECO Enertial 16" x 23" 3-blade props (Note: Generally Mercury recommends keeping the same pitch with the change out but with the horsepower increase wwe needed to move up a pitch to prevent red lining.)



Unfortunately didn't test each mod separately, but like others, seeing a large performance and economy improvement on our Protector 9M. Depending on octane see a 25-35% increase in power running 91/93 octane. Best cruise is 15% higher and fuel economy up 10% at that increased speed. Suprisingly, for a penality of 1/10 of a mpg less from our old best fuel economy our cruise speed increases from 34 mph to 46 mph, an almost 35% gain in speed. We will easily see return on our investment within a year based on fuel savings and about a $2000/yr savings each year thereafter with the modifications based on current usage. More remarkable were the changes in handling with the new props. Feels like a cat in the turns and runs much flatter which is a major plus with a heavy ended RIB. As the saying goes, "your results may vary" depending on your application, but we are extremely pleased with the improvements in speed, economy and handlling.

[Chris]

Is this upgrade making the supercharger work harder to create the extra HP..? Just wondering what the long term implications are for engine longevity...?

[skytour]

Usual answer, "your milage may vary." If you were running wide open throttle (WOT) in any engine it won't last as long. The changes here are primarily fuel and timing taking advantage of higher octane fuel that burns cooler with no changes to the supercharger where the supercharger runs at a higher speed like in automotive applications where they change out the underpulley. We've lowered our operating rpm from 4000 to 3400 with better combustion efficiency. We run everyday. Under those conditions I would expect even more longevity out of the engine. On the otherhand, if you run it WOT the average of 40-50 hours a year like most recreational users, you likely won't get anywhere near the hours on the engine you might expect. My classic example is the Mercury 2-strole Optimax. Recreational users might be seeing a rebuild at 500-1000 hours. Commercial Chesapeake waterman that use them multiple times everyday, notorious for never flushing their engines, average 4,000 hrs or more between rebuilds. It's all about how you use, maintain or abuse them. Both Simon Motorsports and Whipple have excellent reputations. We've used Simon for the past 15 years on other outboards and not seen any reduction in service life, and if anything, were getting more hours out of the engines as they are working more efficiently.