Sometimes it’s easy to forget with all the press the V8, V12 and now the V10 outboards from Mercury Marine get that it was in fact the V6 3.4L that really introduced the new architecture of Mercury’s four stroke engine roll out. Launched in 2018 at the Miami International Boat Show, the 175, 200 and 225 were the catalyst for the biggest change at Mercury in a long time. Performance boaters were a little left out until much later when after the 4.6 V8 was launched, Mercury Racing got their hands on the 250 and the 300 and are great engines overall. I’ve beat the drum of a performance V6 for a while, some might say beat a dead horse, but a few people have tried the V6 on performance hulls for the weight, cost and lower CG benefit. Let’s take a look at one on a performance boat and see how it does out of the box.

This boat is actually owned by Glenn Foster’s father, Glenn runs the Bayrippers instagram account and both he and his father are big Laser Boats fans. Glenn has a Laser with a 2.5 Merc that is really fast that you can see on his page. For Mr. Foster, he decided to repower his Laser 422 Sport LE, which is a 21’ hull, with a new 3.4L V6 226.

For the 225, Mercury let the engine rev to 6,000 RPM, only 5,800 for the 175 and 200. With a 4.88 gearcase featuring 1.85:1 gears, the engine is a fairly competitive 475 Lbs, and is a nice package. What I like is the lower center of gravity of the V6, and the less overall weight; which is really critical on small boats. Without any setup time, and running the same 30” chopper as the outgoing 200 XRI, the Laser ran 80 MPH. That’s really good. Glenn said the engine needs to come up a couple inches, which should get them more RPM and some more speed. For context, the original 200 XRi ran 78 MPH.

Another great feature of the new technology is the fuel consumption, where the XRI would get a 3.5 mpg at cruise, the four stroke V6 Mercury is getting over 5 mpg and obviously it’s way smoother. Glenn said “you barely know it’s back there.” Sounds like they really love the new Merc.

You have to think with some adjustments, they can get it to 83 or 85 MPH. With a coned lower, perhaps more depending on how it’s setup. That’s very impressive and a really economical package. I did hear rumors of an STV Euro running a Mercury 225 V6 four stroke, and the number sounded incredible, and it had a coned case. I think we will be reporting more and more about individuals who went the V6 route. I’m contemplating a project myself.

Thanks to Glenn and his Dad for sharing their boat. Checkout @bayrippers for some great boat content on Instagram. If you have a Mercury V6 four stroke, we would love to hear how it’s performing.

Originally published December 3, 2022