Hi. A buddy of mine is looking at a 1991 Alumacraft competitor 16′ 9″ with a 91 90hp Envinrude VRO. Any input good/bad about this combo would be very helpful. Things to check and look for, etc. Thanks. Mike
Be very careful going thru it for value wise. I just bought a 1990 for my brother and I missed two crucial areas.
Check the transom for sturdiness- they tend to get soft at that age if not properly taken care of over the years. This cost me about $300 extra to fix. Also make sure and check the lower unit for water in the oil. This cost me an addditional $200
If it looks great – still use caution and test drive and check the bottom ect ect. Alumacrafts are a great boat if properly cared for .
FISHINFOOL
google that motor and start reading. 
Personally would not touch it.
-J.
Depending on the price you can get it for it might be a great package for the money. The Competitor model was a higher end boat for Alumacraft, pre-tournament pro models.
Yeah,,,,I would stay away from that motor…………….
Good basic motor, but the VRO oil injection system failed on many motors. The OMC blunder before the FICHT blunder…
I beleive was from an era when Yamaha really made a name for themselves as they actually had a REAL oil injection system that virtualy never failed.
With the issues with the VRO oil injection failing, could you just bypass that and mix the oil? Although a pain in the 
I would think this would alleviate the problem. Let me know if I am wrong.
Quote:
With the issues with the VRO oil injection failing, could you just bypass that and mix the oil? Although a pain in the
You can do that but you also need to disable the VRO so you don’t have alarms going off. Add in the fact these were big heavy v-4’s gas hogs and you have a no buy recommedation from me!!
-J.
iirc the VRO’s that had problems were older than this… I’ve posted links in the past with some really good info and why a lot of the VRO is bad hype is seemingly bad hype. I can’t say anything for specifics about this motor, but VRO’s to watch out for come from the mid to early eighties iirc.
I’m sure you could search my name and find my posts about this. (I can’t on my phone)
Here’s a good article about the subject…
I have an ’89 110 VRO that we baought new. I have not had any problems what so ever with it…never seen a shop to this point. Without a doubt it is a gas guzzler. I am still happy with it as we have used to pull countless tubers and skiers (my daughter was on a swim team). If I had a choice today I would go with a later model 4-stroke…but a ’91 can’t have all that much value (mine is ~$800) so that factor probably in play for for your friend. Bottom line, I’ve never had a problem, but an almost 20 year old motor is an almost twnty year old motor…YMMV…
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