Four stroke vs Two Stroke ???

Bit of a tossup with etec IMHO.

The disadvantage that 2 strokes have traditionally had - has been in emissions.

Becuase the ports are open while the fuel / air mix is scavenged into the combustion cylider from the crankcase, a proportion of unburnt fuel/oil is emitted with the exhaust, which is why 2 strokes have had trouble meeting emissions requirements.

The new injection technology however allows the timing of the fuel oil mix to be delivered into the cylinder AFTER the ports are closed, hence the reduction in unburnt hydrocarbons emissions is substantive and they are achieving very comparable results to a 4 stroke apparently.

That said - it was failed direct injection technology (FICHT) that sent OMC broke, with recalls / power head failures and so on only a couple or 3 short years ago.

Now they have been bought by Canadian Bombadier corp - and redesigned. Bombadier are Kings of the two stroke snow mobile engine tech business...

Since they re launched the evinrude line Bombadier have divested themselves again of the Evinrude / Johnston trade name - I think selling the OB business into a family owned business for whatever legal / tax or potential liability reasons we can only guess at.

How long Etech lives(or does) is anyones guess as it's still early days. The initial results look promising.

One thing no 2 stroke so far can get past, is the fact that the oil mixed with the fuel isn't fully combusted in the burn process - in fact it's designed to condebnse out of the mix upon firing to lubricate the cylinder walls / rings.

If this wasn't the case, then you would be able to run a 2 stroke without oil, without it seizing, now wouldn't you!

So - wheres that unburn't oil end up?

The answer is in the water - whichever way you look at it - it comes out the exhaust into the water.

How many 1 litre bottles of 2 stroke oil does an average boater use a year?... 6 or a dozen?

Would yu willingly walk down the barrack street jetty and pour that same amount of oil into the swan river knowing that with the rising / lowering tide, it was going to kill the barnacles on the timber snags that your prized bream munch on to survive?

I doubt many of us would be able to bring ourselves to do that.

The insidious thing about 2 strokes is that, because we mix the oil and fuel at the garage or at home and never see it again, we just assume - it "dissapears", never giving much thought about where too.

I recall seeing the results of some water testing from Lake Jasper when it was being included into the DeEntrecasyeaux nat park back in my CALM days, and even this freshwater pristine lake in a national park showed traces of oil and lead (from outboard fuel) because it occasionally used to get used as a water ski lake by a few die hards from Manjimup prepared to tow their boats all the way in there on the 4wd sand tracks.

Simply put - the damn stuff just about never goes away - it accumulates.

Take the number of boats that you see on the Swan River, and multiply them all over a years use...bye say 6 x 1 litre 2 stroke oil containers - and go pour that amount of oil into the Swan and it could only be best described as a major toxic waste spill in environmental terms.

Then look at the problems the Swan R and it's fish already have with algae blooms, sewerage spills, mass mortalities, red spot fungus etc etc - and I think we have to come to a point where finally we say no more.

Basically I think we are at that point - mauybe not yet for the ocean, but definitely for inland fresh waters...

Clean and all as 2 strokes now are with the new etch technology, - I still don't believe, they have a place in our delicate inland freshwaterways in this country...

The oceans for a while longer - maybe so...but not our precious scarce inland waterways in this desert nation.

Thats how I see it, theres more than a price / weight consideration - theres the future of the resource.

From this the question then begs - Should bream comps allow the use of 2 stroke OB's?

"Release the fish alive" so they, (and the food chain they rely upon) can die from oil contamination, which by allowing use of 2 strokes, the comps unwittingly encourage?

Maybe it's something to think about for future rules changes...

How the fish die - whether bye oil or nets is immaterial if they die, if you see where I''m headed..

Cheers!