Tohatsu 9.8HP MFS9.8BEFL Outboard Motor

This listing covers the Tohatsu 9.8HP MFS9.8BEFL: a 20-inch-shaft, tiller-steered four-stroke with electric and manual start, weighing 91 lbs. It's a plain specification sheet without the standard-features breakdown some of its sibling listings carry, so what follows works from those numbers alone.

Reading the spec sheet

Two cylinders displace 209cc total, fed by a carburetor rather than fuel injection, with full throttle between 5000 and 6000 rpm. A 20-inch shaft places this in the mid-length category for this engine, meant for standard transom heights. Starter is listed as electric with manual backup, so a dead battery still leaves a way to get the motor running again that same day.

What to check before buying

Confirm your transom height suits a 20-inch shaft, since nothing here describes an alternate length for this exact model code. Tiller steering means hand-operated control rather than a remote console, which matters if your boat is rigged one way or the other already. Tohatsu's warranty on this engine runs 5 years, regardless of which configuration you're comparing it against. Routine care on a carbureted engine like this one mostly means keeping fuel fresh and the spark plugs checked, since there's no fuel-injection system to diagnose if something runs rough.

Is this fuel injected? No, it's carbureted.

How is it started? Electric, with a manual backup method built in.