What year did the popper conversion come out? These were added to motors and not sold on a motor correct?
Thanks!
What year did the popper conversion come out? These were added to motors and not sold on a motor correct?
Thanks!
Thanks! Answer of 1959 was PM to me.
1959 sounds right, but it was a sad day in the history of stock outboard racing.
Now, I didn't really like the Hot Rods and I was a pretty big Mercury fan. The stock Mercury 20H was getting beat regularly by the cheezy little Hot Rods so Mercury put out a midyear hop up kit--Tuned pipes, longer skeg and under drive gear ratio. And maybe a different carburetor.
The legal implications were questionable. The Stock Outboard Racing Commission had a lot more people (like everybody) than the Hot Rod representation (like none), so the hop up kit was approved immediately, in mid year and the 20Hs again prevailed.
This whole deal really hurt stock racing. First it showed that Mercury would prevail—no outside competition. Although the vast majority of the B racers were Mercury, a lot of them resented the whole deal and didn’t make the conversion—and quit racing. And finally, the loud noise from the tuned pipe toilet bowl kept all of stock racing off of many bodies of water.
Finally, note that I never raced B. I had a Hot Rod once, took it to a race and couldn’t get it started, so I sold it. I didn’t really like Champions.
Yes, it is ironic that by the time Merc got these pieces into production and approved, Hot Rod was out of business.
The tuned exhaust came out of frustration at Merc over the original tower being a power robber. On powerhead dyno runs the 20H was equal to or more powerful than the Hot Rod ... Strang had a propshaft adapter rigged up to check power as run on the water and it showed the original the Hot Rod tower was fairly neutral, but the 20H mid tower dramatically reduced power.
The original plan was to just make a new 20H tower that didn't kill power. A number of tries were made ... unsuccessfully. Instead of continuing to find a neutral tower configuration, in frustration, Kiekhaefer gave the order to develop the toilet bowl.
Merc made 4,000 20H's between '54 and '56. There were many unsold 20H's at dealers into the early 1960's. It is possible that a few of these got converted before they were sold, but it was not the general practice to do so ... most of the 20H's were already sold and being raced before they were converted.
The conversion kits remained available from Merc up to about 1970.
Since 1925, about 150 different racing outboards have been made.
Jon Walters has a photo of the 1959 Neosho, WI BU race... that was the first time the 20H's with the conversion kits were raced. Jon won that race on a wide Sid copy, a Broas Craft. If memory serves, he still had 1:1 gears.
When I converted my 20H for 1960, my first season of racing, I ran 1:1 at first, as I couldn't afford the gears AND new props! 16:21 was better, once I got there.
Jon, any chance you could post thay photo and fill in the background info?
Jerry
Also remember that Champion had the about 15 cuber "A" engine designed by this time.
They had built 3 engines at the factory. Chances are this engine would easily run with a KG4
racer. What do think Carl would have done if they built these and they were approved???
Cooper
Andrew,
In my case, it's 2010.....
I have the conversion kit in the shop and I'm picking up an unconverted 20H next week (and hopefully a SidCraft to run it on)
Dave
Haha, cool. Bring it up to Canada and race it some time!
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