John:
Ellie had a non stop string of blocks and powerheads coming from and to Waukegan....perhaps he did the protyping, but there sure were a lot of motors and not from privateers (ala Dick O'Dea). Ellie was very closed mouthed about this, but it was common knowledge in the pits in the northeast. I can also remember when OMC first emerged on the OPC racing scene in 1965 they brought a fleet of boats to various marathons (Orange Bowl 9 hour, etc). OMC had no racing facilities at that time so Ellie built the powerheads and found all kinds of RPM's unheard of from OMC prior to that...and Hubbell built the lower units on the West Coast. Ron Hill ran a pair on a Glastron And those engines screamed....The "factory" GT/X-115's followed a year or so later, and the "wars" began. At least this is how my aging brain cells remember those times.... who knows, maybe I'm senile and the Wankel really was developed in Waukegan as well?
On a related issue we had a guy in Westwood doing a proprietary metal surface finishing process for us. I brought him to Mercury and they did some testing. He signed a contract and never spoke a word to me about his dealings with them after that..... There were certainly a lot of great minds around back then, but it was in both factory's best interests to claim ownership of as much technology as possible, after all they had to justify salaries to some pretty adept pencil pushers.
Someday over a beer we can talk about how dry sumping the #6 Drive was "developed" by Mercury.