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I had the opportunity to work with a friend on his boat yesterday and I took the inline scale and a tachometer with me to test the performance of the engine in a static thrust test. We also did this with both the stock 8 pitch prop and a 6 pitch prop.
The tachometer is a Sendec unit good to 7000 rpm in 10 rpm increments.
The scale is a 3000 lb loadcell scale accurate to the nearest 1 lb increment.
I have been wanting to do this for a while as I have the same engine only marketed under the tohatsu brand and it has run weak since I got it. I had assumed that there were problems with my engine but based on the test results I think that there is a much larger issue.
This is a preview of Review of Nissan / Tohatsu 1 cylinder 4 stroke 6 HP engines MFS6BUL NFS6B2 performance data . Read the full post (964 words, 0 images, estimated 3:51 mins reading time)
The final results are in. I have had the boat back out several times now and with the 6 pitch prop it performs the same as the old 4hp engine. With the notable exception of one day it not being able to quite run at 5knots over the water.. I am done with with it. There is something wrong with the engine and I am going to send it back. I have put two months of effort into working with tohatsu on it to no result. I bought this engine because it was supposed to be more 50% more powerful than my old one, quieter and more fuel efficient. It is less powerful, it is almost as noisy as my old one, but the fuel consumption is impressive (better than factory claims i think). All in all though it is a failure it simply doesn’t perform to the factorys specs. The dealer that sold me the engine has never tried to contact me again. I am going to contact the credit card company and dispute the charge today. I really hate doing it but it’s just to much money to accept a product that is so important to my boat that does not perform to the manufactures specs or to my boats needs.
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Tohatsu USA sent me a lower pitch prop to try on the boat free of charge in their efforts to try and help me with the performance issues I have been having. I got out yesterday and put the new prop on and got some preliminary static thrust measurements.
The prop on the engine goes on and off super easy. Pull the pin on the nut and it just turns off with two fingers easy as pie. The prop then comes right off and the new one slid right on. We just turned the boat around so with the engine up I could sit on the edge of the dock and reach the prop with the engine in the up position. Maybe 2 minutes to change it out.
This is a preview of Tohatsu outboard engine problems the continuing saga . Read the full post (560 words, 0 images, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)
I worked with tohatsu on the height of the mount. no difference. I measured it and it ended up only being about 1 and 1/4 inch lower than stock.
Got back with tohatsu yesterday and they are stumped. They think the boat is two big for the engine and that is why the rpms are running 1200 rpm under nominal . Nominal being according to them 5500 rpm. They are sending me free of charge a 6 pitch prop to test and see what that does. They agree that I am not getting 6hp at the prop if im not getting 5500 rpm but I can tell they want to say it is because the boat is to big/heavy.
Well I got the tach in and put it on the engine this past weekend and she is only taching out at 3800 rpm at the dock.. on the water with the boat moving the rpm’s do come up more than I would have thought but only to 4200 rpm. For an engine that is supposed to get 5500 rpm for nominal 6hp at the prop this isn’t acceptable. I think there is something wrong with the engine even though it has no violent symptoms of being broken other than lack of power. Tohatsu is now saying they think the prop is too far down in the water and want me to move the engine mount back up two inches to the stock height. I will do so but after this I am getting tired of playing with it. They have told me that lowering the pitch will increase the rpms but a while back they said it will only give about 300 more rps which will still be 900 rpms below nominal and 1400 below max rpm at 6000. I could have paid many hundreds less for a 4hp engine rather than buying a 6hp if I hadn’t wanted more power than I had before. This engine is still running weaker than the old early 90’s 4hp 2 stroke Johnson..
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I have gotten my engine back from the service center on Friday and used it this weekend. I am starting to be rather disappointed in this engine. ( the Tohatsu MFS6BUL 4 STROKE 1 CYLINDER ) The service center told me that it is fine. That they couldn’t find anything wrong with it but they also said they didn’t even put it on a tachometer to check what kind of rpm’s it was turning in the tank. They also told me that as a one cylinder engine that it will vibrate. On the other hand they also told me the other day that they had never seen much less worked on one of these smaller engines. I honestly don’t have any idea at this point whether this engine is running the way it should be. (Note: the seller http://www.outboardsales.com never did call me back or follow up in any way to my phone call and subsequent email to them..)
Well I guess its official.. my new outboard is not running right. I showed my video (Tohatsu outboard video) to Tohatsu USA and Vic who I spoke with told me to take it to a service center.. he thinks its in the ignition.. I will say this… Tohatsu USA has been really responsive to my calls and questions. Its not fixed yet but to date I’m really happy with their customer support. They pick the phone up and talk to you right away and Vic who I have been dealing with has been really helpful.
I have finished the break in period… I took the boat out again with Patty and Jeff after running it for a while at the dock to finish up the break in period. I don’t know if something is wrong with the engine or what but it doesnt perform as strongly as my old 4hp 2 stroke. It also has a lot of vibration. I have talked with tohatsu and am going to take it into the local service center and let them take a look at it. The guy at tohatsu said if it isn’t getting up to the top end rpms it is supposed to be then it could be the timing advance having problems in the electronic ignition. They have seen this before. Or that I possibly need to get a lower pitched prop. The one on there is a 7.7 inch 8 pitch prop. I can go down all the way to a 7.9 inch prop with a 6 pitch.
here is a video of the engine running at the dock.
Went out today for the spring regatta. Not many people showed up. Only 3 boats went out. Me on Sea Puppy, Angela on Valkyr and Jerry took out L.C. Marie. It was really light and shifty winds. We were supposed to head down the beach and run past the Cherry Grove Pier but we were basicaly sitting dead in the water for a long time. By the time the winds started to pick up, Tina the young lady that came out with us on sea puppy was sea sick… Another case of a sick puppy on sea puppy. I turned around and went back to the inlet. Once we were off the ocean and back on flat water she felt fine.
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