Converting F250 w/ DEC to Tiller ??

[rockys ride]

I am the unfortunate owner of a 2003 F225 that has corroded through and filled three cylinders with water. My Yamaha mechanic says it's toast and time for a new motor. Ouch...

I found a used 2008 F250 with low hours that I was hoping was going to be a drop in replacement, but it's a DEC engine and I'm not sure if I can use it.

The complication is that I am running a 24 foot Willie Raptor - it's an open aluminum boat used heavily to run 6-pack charters on the Columbia river for salmon. These boats are exclusively tiller handle setups as is mine. There is no steering station or console, all controls (throttle, shift, tilt/trim) are on the tiller handle. It's a Yamaha tiller handle, but I have been told that Yamaha doesn't actually recommend (possibly sell?) tiller handle setups for anything over 150hp (none of these sleds is under 200hp, some go as high as 300hp).

I'm trying to understand if it's possible to retrofit this DEC F250 into my boat (hopefully utilizing as much "stuff" off of the older F225 as possible) and if so, what will I have to buy/replace to do it? The manufacturers are dealing with this somehow because they are still coming out with new boats with tiller handles, but I'm not sure how.

Any advice or experience here is most appreciated. Spring chinook started this week and I really would like to get back on the water in time to catch some of them before they are gone! All favors returned in smoke salmon...

Thanks!

[almetelo]

A latest tiller handle model should work but maybe isnīt an easy steering...
A tiller handle from a latest F90 may work on that 2008 F250
I guess yamaha just recomend tiller handle up to 115 but as you know above that power range is also possible

[rockys ride]

I was reading that the 2008 DEC motors had some kind of solenoid in the back and I'm wondering if there is any ability to retrofit the tiller cable linkage (that I already own from the 2003 225 that just died) to one of those motors? I think, but am not sure, that they now make a DEC motor and a mechanical control motor and I'm kind of hoping that they are the same thing with simply some extra stuff bolted to the DEC that I can ignore or get around and still treat it like a mechanical motor with somewhat historical linkages. I only want to go this route because I found a used DEC motor that will be a good fit if this is solvable - but so far nobody at the Yamaha shops I've chatted with seems to know.

BTW - that last photo is taken of a sled in the Astoria west mooring basin and my slip is about 75 feet to the right of the picture margin... And you are right - you'd never guess that Yamaha doesn't make 200, 225, 250 and even 300hp tiller's from the rows of boats equipped that way moored there in August every year!

[boscoe99]

With the dec model there are no cables to the throttle valve or the shift mechanism.

There is a computer in the control box at the helm. It sends information to the electronic throttle valve telling it how much to open or close. A switch mechanism also in the control box tells a servo on the motor what the shift position should be. How in the world a dec control box could be mounted on a tiller handle is beyond me.