evinrude fithc

[Toddn76]

Has anyone here heard of problems with the 99-00 ficht motors?  If not are they good motors?

[Ben]

They are basically a good motor, but yes they have a tendency to have poblems. As the old saying goes, they are the straw that broke the camels back, and helped put OMC out of business, they did/do have issues.

You need to make sure it has the mod required by the Coast Guard on the injectors. If it does there will be a single big metal bracket holding the fuel lines in and two screw fastening that bracket to the back of the injector. Without this update, the injectors were subject to leak gas and the motor explode. Bunches did that before the update and not all got updated.

They are alsp prone to have ECU problems. What ever you do, never connect jumper cables, to the cranking battery, and never disconnect anything anywhere with the power turned on. Make very sure you keep a good battery that's well maintained in it. A weak, neglected battery can cost you over $1,000, simply because it was still cranking the boat ok and you wanted to get a little more use from it. This is one time you should invest in a onboard charger so it stays connected to the cranking battery. Connecting and disconnecting a charger can blow the ECU also.

The biggest problem is most mechanics don't know how to trouble shoot and diagnose the true cause of an engine failure when it comes to these. It pops a piston, they fix the piston, say well, the injector caused it, might install another injector, or say lack of oil caused it and clean the oil injector, and put you back on the water again. Next thing you know, it's poped that piston again, but rest assured, it will be something else that made it pop this time, what happened last time had nothing to do with it. That mechanic is not going to eat that bill.

There is a company called DFI Technoligies that does some major upgrades on the ecu and software updates, but it's not cheap

Now, with all that negative info, heres some good. I know of motors used in commercial applications that have nearly 1,000 hours and never had a moments problem. The ones you hear about are those unlucky few that got one of the bad ones. Like everything else 10 people can have a problem, post it on one of these sites and say what junk they are and 5,000 will read it and echoe what junk the ficht is. At the same time 500 can post what great motors they are and that don't compute, those 10 had problems so the motors are junk.

I'm running a 99, 225 that had 125 hours when I bought the boat at auction where it was repo'd. Boat and motor sat for two years with the injectors out. I talked to the original owner, he had a problem with intermittent skipping and took it to the shop for repair. About a month later they call him and tell him it needs six new injectors, about $1,500 for that repair. This was after just putting a brand new gearcase on the motor and carpet in the boat. When I start checking the motor out, it had sat for so long the injectors were gummed up so I sent them off to be rebuilt, DFI said they were pretty nasty from old gas. I purged and flushed the whole fuel system, install them and still wouldn't start or run on it's own. Finally figured out the ecu had a problem, sent it to DFI for all their updates and repair. We came to the conclusion the mechanic hung his ignition spark tester on the ECU when he was doing his testing and blew all six injector drivers. Original miss fire problem was caused by one connector not having dielectric grease in it. I've since put about 60 hours on the motor and luv it. Burns a lot less gas than my 300 hp hotrod motors.

Forgot to mention, you can get the model and serial number, take it to a dealer and they should be able to tell you what the repair history has been on the motor.

[Toddn76]

thank you for the info!  I am looking at a 2000 Stratos with a 225  ficht and I thought I have heard some bad things about it but I was not sure.  I really appreciate the input!

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

BEN-  Could you be more specific in your answers please?!?

Your mechanical knowledge is a huge asset here.  

[wcasey911]

Are all Evinrudes also called FICHT?  I keep seeing that name pop up and am not sure what that is.  I have a 96 Evinrude 50 SPL.  Is mine also a FICHT and should I be concerned about the problems mentioned here for my model as well?

[Nick_Barr]

If I am Correct, FICHT was a special Injection System of some kind made in the mid to late 90's by Evinrude/Johnson. If it doest say FICHT its probably isnt. But I am not 100% sure.

[Guest JoshKeller]

Your SPL is NOT a ficht. I beleive the smallest they made was a 90 or 115.

[Ben]

Ficht was OMC's version of a direct fuel injected motor. It was only on Evinrudes and I think they came out with it on some V-4's in 97, but wouldn't bet any money on that. It first came out on the V-6's in 99. I do know from 99 on, all Evinrude's where ficht direct injected motors and all Johnson's are carburated motors, (soon to be converted to their Four Stroke Motors). The concept was great and is still one the best designs for direct injection but OMC tried to get it on the market too soon. Already financially troubled, they didn't spend the engineering dollars and proof testing needed for a new concept and ran into to some major issues. The early V-4's were basically junk, the V-6's had serous issues. When BRP took over the line, they scrapped the whole OMC system until until they could make all the engineering design changes to correct the problems, From 2003 on they have proven to be a very good motors, even the 2001 and 2002 have a pretty good track record.