Three cylinder outboards ... pleasure & racing

**joelsob** · 09-24-2009, 03:00 PM

I only really had 1 true racing 3 cyl engine its an omc engine, but I had to race v-4s and v-6s with this little 3 cylinder, at the drags,they also made me run against jet boats with big blocks in them.
i could take them in the 1/4, and also could take allisons with 140 loopers. and got timed at 82 mph.

to be a bit more honest, and for a bit of an intimidation factor, i had to put some decals on the 49 cube omc...
check the picture!!!

**Dave S** · 09-24-2009, 06:00 PM

Is that a 13 foot invader??? I was just kidding about the 1957 3 cly Merc....... just a Mk 75 with a bad coil.

**goodride** · 09-24-2009, 08:47 PM

my little 12 footer is a homemade hull....a buddy pulled 12 feet off a boat and made a couple hulls for 35 horse omc's

i traded for a hull and asked my friend to make the transom extra strong because I wanted to put a sport ..e...... motor on it...........66 mph the first day with a titus cut 23 sst rx, that was now a cleaver with a smaller diameter to clear the sprint gearcase..
.so 1 day at a boat show I met up with the old service manager from evinrude... and showed him a picture of my little 12 footer i named....".step on it"

he said give me your business card i'll get you 10-15 miles an hour just bolt on my old nitrous system

I was so proud of getting 66 mph, and just put a hustler 3-1 hedder dry stack out the side crazy noisy and no hole shot, open exhaust on the little beoutch.
.a touch over 70, but you had to milk it to plane off.
. we ran the era 1970 nitrous for a couple weekends at the races,

and called chuck at nitrox..he said send me what you have..........i'll get you more !!.
with the right enrichment fuel, and finallly methanol with castor oil...we found 82 at 8200 running a seebold 25 solid hub cleaver....

and that little homemade 12 footer runs straight as an arrow with no bad habits
my little 12 footer sure did...................."step on it"

**powerabout** · 09-25-2009, 04:37 AM

Originally Posted by joelsob

I only really had 1 true racing 3 cyl engine its an omc engine, but I had to race v-4s and v-6s with this little 3 cylinder, at the drags,they also made me run against jet boats with big blocks in them.
i could take them in the 1/4, and also could take allisons with 140 loopers. and got timed at 82 mph.

to be a bit more honest, and for a bit of an intimidation factor, i had to put some decals on the 49 cube omc...
check the picture!!!

What a great machine
Do you have a photo with the cowl off?
Thanks

**joelsob** · 09-25-2009, 08:58 AM

Powerabout....i raced that little guy over 10 years ago..the nitrous got swiped by a mech, on his way out of my shop.
chuck at nitrox made a simple setuo....a piece of angle aluminim bolted to the airbox screws in front of the carbs...he had 2 thickwall brass tubes mounted to the alumin plates drilled for kill, and the fuel and nitrous sprays came in at an angle so they mixed together right in the venturi.

It looked like a co-2 fire extinguisher when you hit the button..we roasted several powerheads before realizing that you cannot just chop off the nitrous and fuel when you feather back the throttle, so we used the up trim button for both, the down trim for the enrichment fuel only, and would take a looong time coming down on the rpm..
once we did that we never lost a powerhead slowing down.

we lost another couple powerheads due to low fuel pressure on the enrichment, and realized the low fuel pressure safety switch, that cut the nitrous was not working right...as I remember we needed 6-8 psi and that

one really good wiesco ,ported powerhead that was broken in for an hour.....lasted this long bwweooo..about 5 seconds. low fuel pressure got it

I still have the nitrox instruction manuals and the tuning tricks chuck wrote us about . .

I always thought the little omc motor absorbed the nitrous heat since we had the hustler hedder to let the flame go straight out.

and the sst 60 gearcase we have ran straight and true at 82...

i still have the whole boat ..like a barn find from the last day it raced...but the nitrous at the engine went bye bye

**powerabout** · 09-25-2009, 12:18 PM

Great bit of history
many thanks

**rwk** · 01-05-2010, 02:53 PM

Hello
I'm new to the forum. I have a hydro from the 60"s, has what look to me from the pictures here a McCulloch 603. The boat was a full race team, 2 complete engines and lower units, 6 blocks, props, cranks....I was told it was used out west for top speed runs, owned by an artist. If I put pictures up could you help ID, boat, engines?
I think it's time to get it back together. Thanks Bob

**joelsob** · 01-05-2010, 04:09 PM

COOL rwk put up the pictures, I always liked small machines with big engines, and you have what seems to be a lot of cool stuff...
and welcome to the scream and fly website and forums.
I just come here to share some of my racing and boating stories, thinking the guys that read my ramblings had similar experiences. and maybe we ran against each other, or were at some of the same races

and I really liked where you said time to get it put back together

picture of 49 cube ...little boat running against 427 cubic inch jet boat.

and the winner was yep!!!

joel

goodride

**rwk** · 01-05-2010, 05:32 PM

Hello
I will get pictures of the hydro soon. It is 14 Feet I think. Papers stuffed in one engine block is from 1967. What year are the engines from? Any Idea what class it would have run in? Any help would be great, Thanks Bob

**Powercat** · 01-05-2010, 06:33 PM

McCulloch 590

**Mark75H** · 01-05-2010, 06:37 PM

Its a 1965 ... #18 produced that year.

I didn't see the mid section at first. Are there 2?

There should also be gears ... spare loose gears ...

The dusty flywheel is the real race flywheel, the red one is just a fishing motor flywheel. I'm not sure on the white block unless its a Sears

You didn't show the cylinder heads yet. Do you have 2 or more? They are special to these motors too.