Yamaha 30 Hrs. 3 cylinder 2 stroke--any opinions??

[Trail]

Does anyone have experience with this motor?? I'll be pushing a 16 ft. Northwood tiller. I'm concerned with trolling--I live near Lake Winnebego. How 'bout opinions on reliability.

Tight Lines

Trail

[Treeguy]

I just bought a 2000 used this spring. I fish about 3-4 times per week, so I have put plenty of time on the motor. I can't sat enough about the motor. It starts great, trolls quite well, and has more power than you would expect out of a 30 hp motor. The only thing that I have to say that I don't like is that after trollin for extended periods, there can be some unspent fuel that comes out of the weep hole in above above propeller when you pull you boat out of the water. I guess this is just part of owning a 2 cycyle motor. I posted a similar message when I was looking at this one and found no negative opinions on them.

[Trail]

What are you pushing with it and what kind of top end do you get??
I hear they are pretty quiet as 2 stokes go, is that true??

[Frank from TBay]

I use this motor on an S16 Lund. Good engine no problems. I wish it were a 40 when I am loaded. Trolling for walleye is a problem. I use a kicker. The 30 does not go slow enough for me when trolling. I am constantly in and out of gear. Good engine though.

[Trail]

Thanks much for the help. My current motor ('87 Mariner 2 cyl. 30 hrs)trolls at about 1.8 to 2.0 If you have a GPS, What does your's troll at??

[Treeguy]

I'm pushing a 16' Crestliner Sportsman. It doesn't troll down to a crawl for me, so I do use my electric motor for extremely slow trolling. I too find that with a full boat load it does slow down. I guess I fish to relax and enjoy myself and don't need to set any speed records on the water anyway.

[Frank from TBay]

I do not use a GPS on my boat. I use a 4hp as a kicker. I cannot relate to any speed trolling. We move at a crawl where we fish and when we are into them usually anchor and cast or still fish.

[Scott]

Sadly, I just sold my 1988 30 HP Yamaha. I got a larger boat and had to let the motor go with the old boat. Mine pushed a heavy Sylvan Striker that was a deep vee with .100 alum. bottom. I don't know what it weighed, but it was heavy. Top speed was over 30 on GPS with two guys. It had a tremendous amount of torque. The three cylinder makes it a smooth idler and runner. Mine was quite fuel efficient. Reliability was awesome. The only thing I ever put in mine was a lower unit seal kit and a water pump. It would start on the 2nd or 3rd pull when coming out of winter storage and run like it had been running every day for the entire 3months. It was a pleasure to own. Parts can be hard to find, but with the internet, that should be easier.

One thing you can do to avoid the smoke and smell when trolling is to make certain you have the motor tilted up just past level. That will keep it from loading up.

Enjoy it, you've got a pretty much bullet proof engine, which is rare these days.