I would first dial in the decision of how many units of Horsepower you need to be happy with your boat's performance. That depends mostly on weight and a little bit on prop choice where you can make it a little more peppy or a bit more power with the pitch and number of blades on the prop.

Then you can check pricing on used 2 stroke vs 4 stroke. We switched to a heavy fiberglass fishing boat of the Carolina Skiff variety. It came with a Suzuki 50hp 4 stroke that was so smooth and quiet and reliable that it was a joy to use it.
However 50hp was underpowered as it struggled to get on plane with more than 2 adults. That motor started acting up and the mechanic had it for a full summer without much success. Half way through that process we saw a trade in 70hp on the rack in the same shop with lower hours and the shop was happy to do a trade (with us kicking in some extra cash as they were embarrassed they could not find the problem and fix it.)

The 70hp Suzuki is still very quiet and very smooth with a much better fit in terms of power and plane off for the boat's weight. Very happy with it. The 4 stroke is very easy to maintain and work on. No tuning needed.

(the problem with the 50hp it turns out--- like nbell would have predicted from his post,--- was complications of ethanol fuel on the hard to reach and inspect inner fuel chambers of the engine)

We were not faithful with ethanol free gas. We learned our lesson and set up our own repurposed fuel oil tank behind the out-garage and filled it with rec gas so now we have our own supply on hand all the time.

Last edited by canyoncreek; 08/30/24 07:49 AM.