I will certainly give you a review as soon as I get mine.
I'm going to repower. My old 2000 model F25 Yamaha is for sale, and I won't buy the new one (we have plenty in stock as of today) until I sell the old one...and the old one is an awesome motor and ready to use just as it is. Short shaft, electric start with manual starter for a back-up, and it starts SO easy with the recoil. One hand, about half a pull and it's purring. Lot easier to pull than the new ones to be honest. Actually I may dig mine out tomorrow and head up to the lake. Crappie are biting and the evenings are perfect. That is, if my old motor hasn't sold by then. If it has, it'll be a few days before I can give a review because it'll take me a bit to get used to it, figure everything out, mount it, test it in different conditions, etc.
Here is what I know of it, in testing a prototype a couple years ago. It's EFI, and because of that and it's lighter weight, it accelerates faster than the older version (07-17 years). The top speed was within 1mph, with the 18 model being on the faster end, but again, there's almost a 50lb weight difference. Both were tested with the exact same prop, 9 7/8 x 11 1/4 white aluminum prop. There might be another MPH in a good stainless prop...dunno...I have a few that I'd like to try out on the new one though, but they wouldn't let us do any of that in prototype testing of course. We were barely able to get it to full throttle. The 18's use the same prop shaft as the older ones, even the old 2 stroke stuff-so that the props will all interchange. 2.08 just like the older ones were.
Now the bad. The old ('99 through '17) had a big heavy "slug" in the "back" of the crankcase, which was the engine's counterbalancer. It was to offset the weight of the two pistons and rods, and did a decent job. The 2018's don't have this slug (I call it a slug because it's about 7 lbs as I remember), BUT the engine is SMALLER displacement (432cc vs 498cc for the old ones), so right off idle, there is some vibration. It is NOT excessive due to the engine's smaller displacement. it's no more than the older one. As soon as you accelerate to about 1800 RPM, the vibration disappears completely. It's right about 1100-1500 range. I don't care for the front-mounted tilt lock lever...but it's something I'd have to get used to since my older motors (Evinrude, Tohatsu, Mercury, Suzuki, and now my current 2000 model Yamaha) are all on the Starboard side. Not a big deal. And...in my case, I don't like the tiller setup...and again, it's personal...the "old" ones had a nice block of aluminum which was part of the swivel bracket that the tiller actually bolted to, and that block made a great place to mount a simple sheet metal bracket to mount a tinytach to. That's the only reason I mentioned it. LOVE the tiller's ease of use but I just haven't found a nice factory-appearing way to mount a tinytach to it yet. I'll work on that once I get the new one in my possession. EFI. It's great and it's not, at the same time. Great that there's no choke to fool with (and neither did the old F25's), but the bad...is that if (when) the fuel gets old in an EFI system, you can easily spend a chunk of change in cleaning that garbage out, and warranty don't cover it. A carb cleanin' is about $100 if you pay a dealer. EFI? Can be 10x that if you have to replace the injectors, high pressure pump, regulator, lines, etc. BUT...yamaha was smart...they put a DRAIN on the VST (VST is the vapor separator tank...basically a small reservoir that encases the fuel pump among other things)...so that you can drain the VST of the fuel before putting the engine up for more than about 30 days. I'm careful with my fuel so that's not an issue with me, but for some, it IS (or more specifically "can be" an issue).
Someone come buy my old motor so I can put the money into the new one!
