New 50hp tohatsu TLDI review

As a outboard engineer of 15 years and somebody who does more than his fair share of boating, I thought you may want to know my thoughts on the tohatsu 50TLDI that I have been using for the past 2 seasons. This isn’s an advertisement for tohatsu or this motor, just an impartial review of the engine.

Firstly why did I choose the 50TLDI from tohatsu outboards? Well I always try to match the engine perfectly to the boat and type of use it will be required to do, in this case, skiing, cruising, and a little trolling. The boat is one of our trusty seapro 500DM divemaster series ribs, its light weight required careful consideration when choosing the outboard, now we at bill higham marine have a lot of outboards for sale, but my options were narrowed to 50 etec from evinrude outboards, mariner F60ELPT-EFI 4 stroke, and the tohatsu 50TLDI. Each of these have their merits, but the weight of the tohatsu - 93kg, the price (£500 less than its nearest competitor) and the brute power I’d get from a 2 stroke won me over. Decision made!!

Engine fitting and rigging was easy, the extra oil for the run in period is taken care of by the ECU, so 1hr of idle to 3000rpm, and 2 more hrs of varying the throttle with minimal WOT were the order of the day. Then it was off to loch loomed for a weeks holiday and to take some snap shots and video of the rig for advertising purposes. I will tell you how we went on and my thoughts of the engine in next weeks blog!!