Best Blue Motor III
 

I assume most would agree Mercruiser has created some great high performance marine engines in the recent years. If the criteria is reliablity, value and performance which is the best blue motor created by the company since 2000? Please share your experiences and/or opinions of why you voted the way you did. This is my third attempt at trying to post this poll. Either the third time is a charm or I am not smart enough and should stop trying to post a poll. Here we go, punch it Margaret!

You should do two separate polls.

One for N/A motors and one for supercharged motors since they are very different in terms of available torque

Smitty,
Great point, however the criteria are reliability, value and performance. Sure the blower motors have more torque and a wider power band but what is the trade off, reliablility??? Just food for thought. Thanks for the response.
Rob

The 525 is a decent engine, however the exhaust drags it way down.

IMO any factory Merc power will last if it is maintained properly. It truly rests with the person who is holding the throttles.

Speaking for myself, when I had Merc N/A power, I drove it hard to get to my top speed alot. Now with blower motors, I can rev 1000-1500 rpm less to go the same speed, so I don't whip the boat as hard.

That makes sense but I have had a different experience. I always wanted a motor with a blower and finally purchased a car with a roots style Eaton Supercharger. I drive the car aggressively to listen to the blower whine. The blower does not get real noisy until about 4000rpm. So when the conditions allow it I cruise up to 4K and drop the hammer to hear the engine whine. I do this all most everytime I am in this car. I can't help myself, the sound is too cool.:evilb:

I agree, I think one of the best motors were the Carb'd HP500 and the Bulldog 540's, but that doesn't meet the poll criteria.
Dean

The 600 and 700 are new and still pricey but have shown to be great motors. The 575 didn't have enough power for the fuel it needed and was pretty much killed when the 525 came out with pretty much the same power on cheaper fuel. That being said if I was looking at newer boats and wanted to be able to run on cheap gas the 525 would be 1st choice. On some older boats you get with the 500efi's for a good price there are alot of nice kit's out that you can get over 600 hp for under 6k.