Know the History of the 3.3 Liter V6 ?

[HMBJack]

Anyone know the history of Yamaha's 3.3 liter four stroke V6? I own a F225 built in April 2005.

I continue to amazed by this engine platform and would like to know more of it's roots. Was it engineered from day one as a MARINE engine? Or modified from a snow mobile or something? And WHEN was it released?

This engine seems to be very well characterized but unlike Honda, which converted the Civic 1.6 liter engine to be the Honda 90, and the Accord V6 to be their 225, the roots of Yamaha's V6 is unknown to me. Last I recall - they make motorcyle and PWC, snow mobile engines. Any accurate info. on this would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Aleutianwest]

I know some of the yamaha 4 stroke valve train stuff has Ford stamped on it

[Deepwatertroller]

I was told by a Yamaha mechanic that Yamaha sends some of there internal engine parts (connecting rods) to Ford. I guess Ford has a state of the art facility when it comes to treating high stress parts. I wasn't real happy about hearing that my Yamaha had Ford parts in it, but I guess everybody's good at something. I have an 86 Yamaha 9.9 four stroke and it's got a Tohatsu emblem stamped on flywheel. I guess that nobody makes all of there parts themself. If it holds up I don't care.

[HMBJack]

Yeah - thanks for that. The Yamaha/Ford relationship goes back to the early 90's when Ford placed Yamaha V6's in the suped up Taurus called the SHO. That V6 was a 3.0 in the manual transmission and later, re-bored to a 3.2 liter V6 for the automatic transmission. The 3.2 V6 produced 220 hp at 6,000 rpm (sound familiar?).

Other than the above, I can not find any other lineage to the F200, 225 250 series 4S outboards. Coincidentially, the Ford SHO was discontinued around 1998. Then, some 3 years later the F200 four stroke came out. Maybe the Yamaha engineers used the SHO as a platform. Makes sense to me but frankly, I don't know. And like you - if it works flawlessly - maybe I don't care...