I am thinking of purchasing a 150 HP Optimax for my 17.5 foot bass boat. I currently have a 2002 model conventional 115hp Mercury two stroke. I am interested in the following

- how will my fuel consumption vary assumming running at moderate speeds. Will it increase or decrease? I have heard that these Optimax engines are very light on gas.

- what is the general feeling regarding the 150 optimax motors?

I never owned a 2 stroke motor that got any kind of decent mileage. I run an Optimax connected to a smart craft gauge. It shows around 6 mpg when in the 4-4500 rpm range. At wot it gets about 2.5 mpg. I have a little over 300 trouble free hours on it so far. One thing you should know is that those Lazer spark plugs are quite expensive.  From a dealership the run about $25 @.  I get mine from O'Reilly Auto Parts for less than $10 @.

well if your gettin a new opti  you wont be changing plugs often  and sparkplugs.com  has them a whole lot cheaper,  you must be buying plugs from the dealer

Plugs are expensive for the Optimax, thats about all the complaints I could have with my optimax. At WOT ALL ENGINES DRINK GAS, but at midrange RPMs I dont even notice the gas usage. You will be happy with the 150 Opti