Several Things To Keep In Mind: V-8 Johnson on Eliminator Daytona: Hill Marine Prop
Keep in mind, this was the first AME 400 boat Eliminator ever built. I think it may have weighed less than 400 pounds. We had bottom water pitch ups, something that was very new, as most ran the geracase in the water, we ran it above the bottom. We ran a 15 X 32.
The V-8 was the 3.6 was Second Effort "High Rev" power packs. I have no ide what the motor was turning for PRM's, but I know we went like 94 MPH with a 32 at 6,250 (Where the rev limiter was). Motor burns a **** load of gas, had tons of power. Had it had an even fire crankshaft, so it sou ded like a V-8, not a V-4 it might have been a big seller.
OMC made so many mistakes.
My Thoughts About The Johnson and Evinrude V-8's
Some people, including myself, get "Hair Brained Ideas" in their heads and sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail.
I personally feel, that Charlie Strang, then President of OMC, believed he could built a boat racing curcuit that would be BIGGER THAN BUBBLE UP (Bubble Up was a 16 oz cola, that never really sold many bottles of soda, but the term "Bigger Than Bubble Up" always meant something was REALLY good. A NASCAR on the water, he had Bill France, Sr. on the Board of Directors at OMC.
Charlie was an engineer first, a politician second and a corporate leader....maybe third.
OMC spent MILLIONS developing the Race V-8 as Mercury had sold many motors becasue they were the winning motors and everyone knew it. The V-8 circuit started off on the wrong foot in the first place, as OMC wanted to own all the motors. Then, let Gary Garbrecht hand out motors. My sponsor, Brad MIller and I had quit tunnel boat racing because we could not BUY Mercury EFI motors. Brad owned Del Taco, a 100,000 dollar a year business and when he could not buy an F1 motor, we quit racing.
Also, early the V-8 curcuit had more deaths than I really know about. I do know they had three die in one race.
So, the production V-8 was made as cheap as possible and the race V-8 spared NO EXPENSE. I think OMC marketing, if their was such a thing, never knew the difference between even fire and V-4 sound. Their mistake was that even without the internet, people talked on the phone and consumers found out real fast that their V-8 wasn't anything like the Race V-8. Sales never took on the production V-8.
Dabull:
When we ran the Lavey at Havasu with the V-8 we had high rev packs and a Second Effort low water gearcase. What we had done, was design a boat bottom with too wide of tunnels and we could not hold any air under the boat, and it wasn't fast and it didn't handle well.