Originally Posted by
Master Oil Racing Team
It's not just simply the diameter and pitch to identify the motor and class Joe. Marshall Grant had one prop that turned out to be his best prop for the 350cc (OB class), 700cc (OD class) and 825cc (OE claass) motors. How can this be you ask. The B class ran either a 12:15 or 12:14 gear ratio lower unit, the D ran a 15:16 lower unit and the E (or F class as we called it in the U.S., ran a 1:1 lower unit.
I pulled out my test book and will look at some examples of the best props we ran. That 7 X 13 would run on a B, but it also would work with other classes as I mentioned.
My first competition record was at Alexandria in 1967 in A hydro. I set at B hydro record at Alex the following year. Over the years I set a number of competition records that were broken before the year ended so the last guy went into the books. On a good day at Alexandria, it was common for a half dozen records to be set only to be broken in the second heat, many times by the same driver who upped the previous record. Of my proudest accomplishments with records were two that we set with competition setups. In 1976 we averaged a little over 110 mph with the same setup but different boat that we won the world championship with and in 1979 we went a little over 105 mph. These were both kilo records and reflected what the hydros could do on a race course like Alex or Dayton when the water was good. We used the same props we raced with on 1 1/4 mile courses. That is.....with good acceleration...not a long wind up to enter the traps. We did this just to find out how fast we were running in good conditions. When boat development lagged behind engine horsepower no one was constesting the records of the bigger bore alky classes and we knew from our Kellers that we were within range of the old records.
Another accomplishment we were proud of is being the first boat to average over 80mph on a 1 1/4 mile course. Of course inboards didn't have records for that size course, but ALL outboards did. We were the first. Jerry Kirts went over 80 later that year at Alex. so he went into the books. The records you might have been referring to Joe were probalby the competition records I set at Yelm in 1976 and 1980. One was with a 700cc Konig and the other was an 825cc Konig, and remarkably the records were exactly the same...90.817 for the 700 and 1100 cc hydro class I was hoping to be the first outboard to break 100 mph average in competition, but there was no testing at either of the surveyed 1 2/3rds miles courses where that might be possible. My last shot was at Yelm in 1980 where I got a terrible start and the 90.817 was because the first lap was around 88mph, the second was 93 or so and the last lap was a little over 96, but it was all I could do to keep the boat on the water. I kept the throttle wide open, but feathered the pipes up and down to keep from blowing over. If we could have had just an hour on the water we could have broken 100. The two guys who came closer than I did were the late Jim Stone, and Todd Brinkman, Jr. Jim averaged 99 the year he was killed and Todd was averaging over 100 when he blew over on the final few hundred feet to the finish. Sorry to ramble on, but...you asked....and I got flooded with memories looking up some info
Be back with some stats on props later tonite or maybe tommorrow. Have to head to Corpus for fried speckled trout with my father in law and nephew and his wife who came to visit from East Texas.