Mercury 150 FourStroke outboard motor

Mercury 150 Fourstroke Outboard Motor

Mercury Marine pumps out so many great marine engines it’s hard to keep up. The sound of big-power Verado outboards (especially if it’s a twin Mercury 350hp Verado setup) make at full throttle is music to our ears, whilst the big-capacity yet lightweight Mercury 115hp FourStroke outboard has torque like no other boat engine in its class.

Mercury 150 FourStroke

All this makes it easy to forget that Mercury also has one of the best 150hp outboard motors in the game.

The Mercury 150hp FourStroke outboard motor is simplicity perfected. Using a large three-litre powerhead breathing via a single overhead camshaft design, Mercury has managed to squeeze big torque from low weight. At 213kg for an XL (25in) the 150hp is the lightest in class while its 102x92mm bore-to-stroke ratio keeps the engine feeling under-stressed right up to its maximum working rev range at 5000-5800rpm. Incredibly, the 150hp Mercury FourStroke can be had with a tiller arm, though we like it too well as a forward control with hydraulic steering to find out.

Our review boat was a crowd favourite – the Haines Hunter 565R, a fibreglass offshore fishing boat tested at our annual Australia’s Greatest Boats shootout. The hull’s on-water weight was approximately 1200kg including two testers and fuel. The hull is 5.65m LOA with a wide 2.4m beam and deep-V deadride of 21 degrees.

Pushing the excellent throttle right to the limit, we saw as much as 37kts from the Mercury 150 four stroke engine, while running at 5500rpm. Fuel burn at wide-open throttle was only 55 litres per hour, meaning we could cover 0.67 nautical miles (1.24km) per litre. That’s impressive for a full-throttle attack.

Pull it back a bit and the sweet spot for a fast cruise was at 3500rpm. At this, we were burning through 22 litres per hour, giving 0.83 nautical miles (1.53km) per litre, which once again is a great result.

Mercury 150 FourStroke specs

TYPE Inline four-cylinder fuel-injected petrol outboard motor

RATED HP 150

DISPLACEMENT 3.0L

WEIGHT 213kg

LEG LENGTH 25 inch

GEAR RATIO 1.92:1

PROPELLER Stainless steel three-blade propeller