Brief Summary
Evinrude ICON is an advanced, intelligent electronic shift and throttle system for Evinrude E-TEC outboard engines.
Key Features
- 1 TO 5 ENGINES READY
The ICON system is engineered to fit up to 5 Evinrude E-TEC V6 outboard engines. No application too big or too small. - CONTROL FROM MULTIPLE STATIONS
The system which installs at an additional stations with minimal parts and effort. - EVINRUDE INNOVATIONS
New features like RPM Tune and PowerSync give you more control than ever before. - F-N-R INDICATORS
Forward-Neutral-Reverse (F-N-R) Indicators easily identify gear-position for added safety and usability. - POWERSYNC
PowerSync automatically synchronizes multiple engine RPM and delivers a new level of convenience for controlling multiple engines. - ENGINE TRIM
A single master engine trim switch is installed on the shift lever to control all engines.
Specifications
| Type of Engine | |
|---|---|
| Number of Cylinders | |
| Horse Power | 400 |
| Configuration | |
| Weight | |
| Fuel Type | Gasoline |
| Fuel Delivery | |
| Shaft Length Options | |
| Shift Throttle Control | |
| Displacement | |
| Steering Control | |
| Recommended Fuel | |
| Alternator Output | |
| CARB Rating | |
| Engine Monitoring System |
Captain's Report
One for All. Thanks to digital technology, we now have the ability to dial in the controllability of Evinrude E-TEC engines like never before. It’s a simple matter of programming and adding a digital controller to the helm. Let’s take a look at the individual features and see how they all come together with ICON.
Maintaining the Basics. Before you can get too far into the deep end of the pool, it’s important to keep the basics in mind and not abandon the old ways entirely. On our old controls, pretty much the only perk we had was the ability to push a button on the side of the controller and activate the throttle in neutral, as well as trim the lower units with a thumb toggle. In our new controllers, we still have the neutral ability, but it is no longer in the form of the button on the side. Now it’s right on top with the rest of the buttons, this time in the form of two buttons designated “neutral”, and labeled with a capital “N”. That should pretty much remove all confusion. Need a little rpm to charge the batteries? Just depress the “N” and move the throttle forward to raise the rpms. Press it again, and you are now free to move about the water.
Add a Touch of Zeros and Ones. Since the controllers are now, in effect, switches, we can add some features to those switches. The first one that we’ll come to appreciate is the gear indicators. Right on top of the control base are three triangular indicators for forward, neutral, and reverse. No letter designators this time, just green pointers for forward and reverse, and a round center yellow one for neutral. This is actually a great addition to the detents that are easily felt as you move the control arms through the range of motion. Once in a while you just want to see where you’re at. To add frosting on the cake, there is also an audible “chirp” from the I-Command gauges as you drift in and out of gears- so now with the E-TEC controller you feel the gear (the detent), see the gear (the light), and hear the gear (the chirp). The only thing left for it to do is talk.
But Wait, There’s More… Once the programmers got the hang of things, it was a small matter to add to the control love-fest. The first in the list of perks is cruise mode. Just touch the cruise button and you’re holding your speed, just like in your car. I know, you get the same thing when you take your hand off the controls. But remember, we’re digital, so now it’s always better. You can also make those pesky incremental changes to your speed by depressing the “+” or "-" rocker switch.
Each press will add or subtract as the case may be, roughly 50 rpm. This is a great feature for those times when you’re cruising and just slightly catching up to the boat in front of you, but have no room or desire to pass. Just tap the minus button and you slow down just enough without having to move the controls. This feature also works in no-wake speeds too, and that’s where it really shines. Need a little more speed without going too fast? Just tap the + and you're good to go. Creeping up on the boat in front again? Just tap – and you hold your relative position.
Syncing Feeling. Keeping your engines running at the same speed can be problematic when they’re individually controlled. Now with ICON you can keep your engines running at the same speed with the push of a button… the sync button. Depressing "Sync" will have you running at the exact same (synchronized) speed, since the engines are signaling to the control exactly how fast they’re running. And the beauty of this system is that it will sync up to five engines. 
Here’s the button to not only keep your engines running at the same speed, but to control them with a single lever.
A green indicator lets you know when you are in single lever/sync mode. Additionally, the sync feature also allows single lever operation. So not only are all engines synchronized to each other, they’re controlled with one lever… the left lever. Why the left? Because that’s the one with the trim switch on it. Which leads us to…
Engine Trim. Trimming your engines collectively is still done the same way, with the thumb switch on the control arm. However, sometimes you want to trim individual engines, particularly with triples or quads. For those times, there are individual trim switches for each engine on the control base. In the triple or quad applications, those individual trim controls are relegated to the panel.
Mechanical Component. The beauty of this system is that there are no longer problematic cables to run back to the engines. Now it’s a simple wire run and the controls are plug-and-play. But there is one mechanical component to the mix and that is the tension adjustment. Screws on the front of the control base will add, or reduce the tension of the control arm to your desired taste.
Wait, Electronics and Water? Of course for all this to work there needs to be a computer controller, but it’s very secure and we're told by the folks at Evinrude that it is not prone to crashes, failures, or freezing. In fact, the latest Evinrude engines are so self-sufficient that they work where the older outboards used to fail. For example, if you have a dead battery, your old engine would fail you right along with the rest of the systems… not so anymore. Now the engine generates its own electricity and keeps right on going. In fact, if you could rig a pull start to your flywheel, you could even start the engine without a battery. 
The ICON control system is available on any of the Evinrude E-TEC engines from 150-hp on up to 300-hp. Even still, with this innovation, we still have room to grow. Now that signals are going back and forth between the helm and the engines, there’s a whole host of features ahead. Some are already here.