As Dave says the question would be whether it can tilt up on your fixed mount. If there's a Tohatsu dealer in your vicinity with a 3.5hp in stock, you may be able to test it out, if you haul your boat to their store. Having seen the motor in person myself, I'd say odds are not good it will tilt, but I've only seen pictures of your mount so couldn't be sure. Should be plenty of HP for an M17. As I said, if I wasn't a minimalist I would probably have bought the Tohatsu 3.5hp instead of the Honda 2.3hp. A guy I know bought a Tohatsu 3.5hp for his Potter 15 (another case of motor overkill...). He got a lemon from the factory unfortunately...turned out to be a defective carb. But other than that it was a nice little motor. Speaking of that, one thing to be aware of - if you buy online, in theory your local dealer is the one to provide warranty service, but some of them are cranky about providing warranty service for motors they didn't sell themselves. My friend had that problem...he bought it online and the only dealer anywhere nearby stalled him for months on taking care of the warranty repair. We took his Potter out at least one time using my Honda while his Tohatsu was waiting in the cranky dealer's shop. cheers, John On 10/19/20 7:15 AM, Andrei Caldararu via montgomery_boats wrote:
Continuing my earlier email about finding the right motor for my M17.
Does anyone have any experience with the Tohatsu 3.5HP 4 cycle engine? Is it powerful enough? Is its powerhead too big to tilt up completely on a fixed motor mount?
(I did manage to do a complete refurbishing of my old Evinrude 4hp which came with the boat, and it is now running well. So I am not in a hurry to change; but this Tohatsu engine has caught my eye as a good choice.)
Thanks, Andrei.
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