fountain11

Looking at a 36 concept with two 250 EFI Mercury Outboards, never having outboards before could anyone tell me if these motors are reliable and the expected time between overhall. I was told these motors could last a 1000 hours or more. I wish my 500;s lasted half that much!

Johno

I have a pair on a 29 Renegade CC. I am very happy with the overall performance. FWC has some of these motors on their Patrol boats & we spoke with a Officer last Summer that had over 1500 hours on these motors. They may use a little more gas than the 4strokes & then there's oil. I don't find my oil consumption that bad. Change oil in the Gearcase every 100 hours & that's basically the maintenance program. It would be very hard for us to switch back to an inboard, just for the simple fact of maintenance free boating.
Fevermike here on OSO had the same boat setup on his Concept

fountain11

Thanks for the information, can you tell me the fuel consummation and the cruising speed I would expect with two 250 on a 36' Concept? I plan to use the boat in the Tampa Bay area for island hopping and occasional fishing.

ragtop409

Are you looking at the one sitting on the bunk at Maximo Marina? I was just drewling on it friday.


Rag's

Mirage 36

I run twin 250 EFI's. Great running engines & very dependable. Mine have 600 hours so far. Only major issues are lowers had to be rebuilt due to leaky seals.
They are not the best on fuel economy.

Mirage 36

I get about 1 to 1.2 mpg at 30 knots cruise on my 36 Mirage. at 40 she drops to about .8 to .9 mpg loaded down.

Johno

I get around 1.5mpg @ about 40mph cruise & @ 1 to 1.2 mpg @50mph. At full throttle according to the Smartcraft I see a burn of 29gph You'll probably see 1mpg at 40mph with 36 Concept.

FeverMike

I owned a 2004 36 Concept with 250efi's. I averaged 1mpg under light cruising and no wide open throttle. Not good mpg but considering the hull wetted surface and the engines this is normal. My speed numbers were cruise at around 42mph at 4200 rpm and WOT was between 58-61mph depending on water conditions and fuel passenger load. 58-59 was normal top speed. The engines like Johno said are very reliable and the only real weak link is the counter rotating lower unit. Be sure to keep lots of oil on board though. I found less smoke with the Penzoil semi synth.

The 36 Concept will slice through rough chop like a dream. When the swells kick up over true NOA 2-3 feet the boat will go airborn because it is actually a very light weight boat. It lands very soft though. I found that if I tried to use the long narrow bow to slice through rough waves the ride will get very wet especially for rear passangers because there is no bow flair. I found that the boat ran almost as good if I trimed it up more than I thought I should and ran a little positive tab. I had Mercury Racing K-Planes and not the crap stock Lenco tabs and they helped out a bunch. I did not have much trouble boating around Tampa, Clearwater and St. Pete. Excellent cruising around boat and easy to dock for it's length. Also the draft is very shallow and that is awesome for our area.

GregP

My Scorpion is about the same size (32 w/o the engine bracket, straight V, 8000#) but the V-rats get 1.5 mpg at 4000 RPM/38 mph and 1.0 mpg at 5000 RPM/50 mph.

-Greg

FeverMike

Yep, the Verado's are a nice engine....my current boat which is a 38TE Fountain with 3-Verado 275's couple with a super efficiant hull nets me average 1.4mpg at a cruise speed of 48mph!...and get this...this Fountain weights 6,000lbs+ more than the 36 Concept! I can back down my boat to 3600rpm @ 41mph and get 1.5-.6mpg!

I keep thinking about selling my Fountain for a smaller boat in the 30' range in order to cut down on boat payment and cost of boating but I can't find a boat in that size that gets the speed and fuel burn better than my Fountain.