Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

If I were to buy a pontoon boat and decided to upgrade the motor later would I have to change much on the boat if I buy the same make of motor

Will wrote:If I were to buy a pontoon boat and decided to upgrade the motor later would I have to change much on the boat if I buy the same make of motor

Well, there are a LOT of variables there.
#1, the biggest variable is, will your boat handle a bigger motor? The capacity plate should state how large of HP motor your boat has been built to safely sustain. Now don't get me wrong, I'm always in the camp for Bigger is better, and when you can add HP, do it. However, you may want to make sure you boat can handle more hp.

#2 You may be safe with only the engine swap, if it's the same brand, and your boat is rated for it. Say for instance you have a 50hp motor, and you want to step up to a 90hp motor, and the capacity plate states a limit of 115hp. Then you should have a relatively "easy" swap, given it's the same motor, and the same generation. A 2 stoke to 4 stroke swap may be a bit more difficult, and to be honest, I'm the wrong person to answer the question of if your current controls would work.

If you are going to swap to a completely different brand of engine, then you're going to need new controls as well, guaranteed.

Your best bet is to buy the boat with the most HP you can afford right now. I've never heard anyone say that they wish they didn't have as much power as they do.

Thanks GXP, the boats I have seen with the small motors can handle a bigger motor

We ran our 2000 Forester 20' pontoon with the 25HP Nissan 2 stroke that came with it until 2 years ago. We then bought a used 40HP Honda 4 stroke and swapped the motors in about four hours on a Saturday afternoon. We did have to remove the Nissan controls and install the Honda controls which was the biggest time sink, but not really that difficult. Steering controls were fine, didn't need to do anything special there.

All in all a very do-able job if you have moderate mechanical skills and aren't afraid to drill a few holes!

Obviously, if you're going to put a big-block chevy motor in an Aston Martin convertible, you're going to have to do some engineering! But outboard swaps are not a big deal. One of the things you might consider, if the current motor has a detached, portable fuel tank, is installing a larger fixed tank. The nice thing about 4 strokes with their EFI and such, is not needing to mess with those little squeezy fuel bulbs any more.

Will wrote:If I were to buy a pontoon boat and decided to upgrade the motor later would I have to change much on the boat if I buy the same make of motor

As a general rule the answer is yes you can use the same binnacle, cables and main harness; however the tach maybe an issue if you're going from a 2 stroke to a 4 stroke or visa verse.

Thanks everybody for the info I am still looking, it will be at least another month and a half till any boats around here go in with weather we are having

BobG wrote:Obviously, if you're going to put a big-block chevy motor in an Aston Martin convertible, you're going to have to do some engineering!

I'm kinda thinkin 425 horse 502 for the Prowler, myself.