Merc 20H conversion year?

[Trident]

I'd agree with Sam that some had great success with the Carter N, even after the introduction of the KA7A. The key was to have a good Carter (and many were not) and to use the fuel conversion kit fuel pump. Eliminate the pressure system...

One of the best at making Carters work well, was Ron Thomas, perrenial BU hot dog and outstanding 20H motor builder.

I ran both KA7A and Carter N from time to time, but I hated having to reset the float constantly in the Carter. We were not allowed, then, to reinforce that float tab, and the pounding of a BU would bend it.

Jerry

[Ron Hill]

In Worchester, Mass, 1957, they had the DU Mennan (After Shave Lotion company) Marathon, for all DU marathon winners. Everett Baggs had won the Blythe Marathon and Davve Hart had won the Needles Marathon. They got $200 or such for gas money to drive from California to Massachsetts, plus the change to win $1,000 prize money. My dad paid Dave Hart to take my AU back and my dad flew.

Dave and Everett ran DEAD LAST! We few Californians (Dan Schwarzenbach, me, my dad and the Baggs and the Harts...). My dad flew home after the race, and by the time eveyone was back in California he'd figured out why these two were so SLOW. With the motors riding in the trailer tio Mass, the floats beat themselves to death.


It was about this time that my dad started "Lapping" the needles and seat himself. You many years he had adjusted the "AIR" reed stops on the 20-H, as there was not measurement on that stop, so he lowered them...

He also discovered that Carter made a neoprem seat for the Carter carb, something he fould in several motors, during inspection, over the years.

We always ran the tops on "BACKWARD" on the KA-7A carbs, so if they over flowed in rough water, the fuel would blow past the carbs, rather that suck back in the carbs.

[Mini Max]

Picture and patent.

My teenage buddy got a racing KG-4 after the seller moved up to one of the conversion 20-H's. some 40 + years ago. Hearing that howl the first time was memorable. That green tank Merc (painted black) resides in the garage at my Mom's cottage now.

[jeff55vDSH]

I love reading all these stories of yesteryear. Thanks everyone for taking the time to share them. I sometimes feel like I was born 20 years too late. I was just starting out in boat racing back in 1976.
APBA Stock Outboard has sure changed from back in those days.
I wonder if anyone would have bought a brand new 20-H Merc if they knew their rig would be restricted in order to allow 20+ year old motors that were no longer in production to remain competitive? My how times have changed.

[smittythewelder]

Interesting to hear the guys that raced unconverted 20H's and Champs in the '50s saying that the thumper conversion was a mistake. From my perspective, seeing my first (all-Stock) outboard race in '64, I thought the converted 20H's were phenomenally cool-sounding and cool-looking, and could hardly wait to get mine. Had all the classes been quiet, cowled, and basically ordinary-looking outboards, I think I might have ignored them and concentrated on Inboards, which made noises like real racing machinery should. And if all outboard racing had been done with regular production motors with gearshifts and standard towerhousings like the old 36 Class, which some here have advocated, guys like me would not have bothered to look at another outboard race. I'm not saying this to be argumentative, just to point out another perspective. I bet that a lot of guys were turned on to outboard racing specifically because of the badass rap and crackle of the B Stockers' open pipes.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

After hearing the open exhaust of the Johnson SR's, KR's, and PR's, and then shortly thereafter the open exhaust sound of the two and four cylinder merc's in NOA Modified and Alky racing in the fifty's when I first started, compared to the sound of the first stock motors I heard along the same time, I would not agree more.

I probably would not have stayed interested with the motors "all closed up" as the stockers were in that time frame when I first attended some boat races in the early and mid fifties.

Several groups of folks would have probably been happier if things had not worked out that way though. One ex and one present wife, both of whom had to and to this day have to put up with "Huh", and "what did you say"?, and my neighbors when I lived in a quadplex on a main boulevard in Little Rock in the same time frame, when I used to run my modified 30H in a 55 gallon barrel with a test prop and open "Sycnrotone" exhaust. That baby would really make the windows rattle in the neighborhood while being run WOT under a roofed over carport on a cement slab with probably 200 folks living within a 100 yard radius.

Never had a problem with anyone. They were either all deaf also, or liked the sound as much as I.