2022 Stock Outboard Racing’s Future

[dandrews75]

https://youtu.be/baOKzPnypqM

So the video above is a straight up apples to apples comparison to the current AX with a racing foot. The boat in the video is a Fralick hydro that was built and raced by Bob and Jonathan Abbott back in 2005. The boat in the video which is box stock including the regular foot has run 52 mph and weighs around 310+ with the driver so maybe 15-20 under current class weight. In talking with someone who has ran the same design with the racing foot on the AX they ran 53 mph. Now top boat are running what 54-56? How much money is being poured into these engines for the same performance? I can buy a Merc AX15 for what, 1000 or less off of Craigslist or Kijiji and achieve the same performance. It’s really time to wake up when it comes to stock and I’m guilty of it myself!

[dandrews75]

https://youtu.be/izONKV0eXww

This is the original video of this boat with the box stock aluminum prop doing 50 mph. Motor is box stock in both videos. Max RPM in this configuration was 6710. Pay close attention to the comments. Almost 50000 views of this video. I haven’t seen any current stock outboard racing videos that come close to this number of views! Anyone know what is going on with the Mercury 20HP 4 Stroke? It would be nice to step into the 21st century and actually be able to get a readily available motor for racing from a mainstream company at the dealer down the road and not be subject to the whims of what amounts to boutique manufacturers and parts suppliers!

[Albert]

The young man has a following when he’s racked up 100k views with two hydroplane videos. That 15 seems like a peach of a motor and the fact he’s running an out of the box sub 200$ prop is really impressive. Maybe someone here could comment how much there still is to be gained with a better prop and doing a little work to the power head.
I still would love to test a 20 4t merc. I bet the 4 stroke torque would really help close the gap against the 30~hp 2 strokes.

[Ron Hill]

When I saw this post, I thought maybe the world ha comes to its senses, then I saw this You Tube was 7 years old.

My brother, was often chastised by the APBA administration for being ten years a head of what was happening.

On Monday December 5, 2022 I agreed to buy a brand new 15 HP Tohatsu, short shaft, 4 stroke.

I was going o have Ernie Dawe build me a boat for this motor.

I digress, with the Sidewinder's one employee who also built the OMC gearcases, I have spent about thee months trying to figure out how to build OMC gearcases.
It come to this build 25 at $2000 each or build 100 at $700 each. ($50,00 for 25 or $70,000 for 100)....If APBA paid for them their return on their investment would be zero over the next 8 years. If I made them my return would be the same.

Bottom line making racing gearcases is a LOSER!

[Ron Hill]

So, what I suggest is simple:

Have a 15 HP Class with production Gearcases with no rules til the class grows.

I make parts and props for 15 HP and 18 HP that race all over the world, only in America do people think they need a racing gearcases.

Bottom water pick up nose cones.....will out run a OMC 15 gearcase.

That thru hub prop that went 52. I repitched those to 14's added cup in an 5 mile heat in Japan, they were lap a head on the stock props in 5 laps.

My cleaver and Semi cleaver have won the Australian Pursuit for several years...

This is a great idea, on You Tube, just three years ahead of time....

ADD; I had no clue that a stock gearcase with a piece of **** Stainless prop would go 52 MPH, I thought the gearcase would "blow Out"...

Let the class run any 15 HP, including four strokes.

[Albert]

I guess I need to start loosing weight to make it down to ash size.

In all seriousness though I can’t wait to see how this goes. I’ve only gotten sucked into this hydroplane business in the last few years but it’s been a head scratcher since the start why there are no off the shelf motors in stock outboard racing.

[Wiltshire]

https://youtu.be/izONKV0eXww

This is the original video of this boat with the box stock aluminum prop doing 50 mph. Motor is box stock in both videos. Max RPM in this configuration was 6710. Pay close attention to the comments. Almost 50000 views of this video. I haven’t seen any current stock outboard racing videos that come close to this number of views! Anyone know what is going on with the Mercury 20HP 4 Stroke? It would be nice to step into the 21st century and actually be able to get a readily available motor for racing from a mainstream company at the dealer down the road and not be subject to the whims of what amounts to boutique manufacturers and parts suppliers!

Hi dAndrews75,

I'm Ken Slessor, the owner and poster of the videos you've shared! I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the boat or its setup!

I actually never knew who originally built Fly'N Eagle! I always thought that Will Hunter had built the boat. I bought the boat off of Wesley Hammond years ago. I have made a few tweaks to the boat and repaired it because it was involved in some kind of accident before I bought it from Wesley. I made a few tweaks to the setup after these videos and got the MAX RPM up to 6910, according to the Hardline HR-8061-2 Tach I was using. I'm not too sure how well the engine would hold up revving past that amount, if someone were able to squeeze a few more RPMs out of it.

I think the key to my success with the stock 15HP was that I was the weight of a feather at the time of filming these videos. Pretty sure I weighed about 120-125 in these videos. The boat weighs less than I did too. Your estimate of around 310 is pretty much spot on.

As for using 4-stroke Mercury 15HP engines, I do agree with both yourself and Ron that making the barrier of entry for hydroplane racing lower would be a step in the right direction. Most people these days have no idea how to work on 2-strokes and quickie gear foots or even where to find them. The parts supply for these engines has dried up so much in past 5 years as well. I'm not too sure how well the 4-stroke would work with current boat designs. Not sure if the additional weight in the back with a 4-stroke would cause weight distribution issues or not. It may require some slight tweaks to the boat design. I'd be curious to see the hole shot capability of the 4-stroke vs a 2-stroke. Once you have things dialed in with a 2-stroke, the hole shot becomes extremely difficult.

[Ron Hill]

Interesting to me, is the throttle set up.

When I first raced for Evinrude, we ran the throttle just like the 15 HP Mercury had, there was a steering cable piece of wire hooked from the throttle to the foot throttle and a bungee to return the throttle.

It worked great and the kill switch was easy to hook to your wrist or life jacket.

By the way, I want to change how these boats are run and raced.

Number One: They will be "Sit Down" Boats.

Number Two: They will ALL race 660 Feet Drags. Drags will have a stand alone winner. But Drag points will accumulate for circles. So circle racing plus drag racing will be the 15 HP winner.

Number Three: No weights, no motor rules but 15 2 or 4 stroke.


And to get around the trim "Drag Race" we will call them a "LOCAL CLASS" with 660 heats.

Look how low Dick O'Dea used to run his KG-4...

[dandrews75]

Something to keep in mind with these new engines and some of the 2 strokes. The rev limiter. Albert was saying that Tohat and Merc has a 6300 limit. Maybe have a conversation with him on how to get around it. One thing about Ken’s boat, it has a air relief tunnel at the back and this may have helped with the thru hub prop.

[Albert]

I just checked on the tohastu but I would need to see a wiring diagram (and maybe an ecu schematic) it seems like on the tohatsu the rev limiter just cuts spark to a single coil in order to reduce power and rpm. But I haven’t found a wiring diagram online to tell me much more. If it simply has an additional circuit to one coil it may be easy to bypass (although I doubt an oe manufacturer would allow a coil to ground out through the ecu) regardless I’m sure there is a work around.
Ultimately it may not be required to turn the power head that fast if the gearing in the lower unit keeps the prop speed up right?