Mercury Through The Years...

[willabee]

No, the thought never crossed my mind...!! .....

Originally Posted by FUJIMO
...No sir... I was at the o.e.m. level, (but not always)designing & building things that were pointy in the front & flat in the back, out of plastic. I'm sure I've spent a couple million or more, on new Merc Hi-Perf product alone though...not to mention the $ on regular Merc product. We'll leave it at that.


Back in 72 there was some sh-t going on within the Racing Department that I did not like. My position with the company didn't give me enough authority to make the changes that I felt were needed. Reluctantly, after a hell of a lot of thought, I decided to call it a day. I met with Gary Garbrecht, Director of Racing, to inform him of my decision.
Gary always knew what what was coming up, he had an amazing knack for being with the right folks at the right time. In our meeting he informed me that, in about a year, Merc was starting a Hi Performance Products Dept. He said I had been tagged to be the head of this addition and asked me to stay. Obviously a promotion, but more importantly, got me out of that environment and allowed me to keep doing what I really enjoyed, I said okay.
I mention all of this because I'm curious to know who you dealt with when you ordered product from Hi Perf. and how that whole experience worked for you. It was probably way after me, but Hi Perf was kinda my baby, wanted you to understand why I have an interest in this.

[FUJIMO]

Mike Goerlitz passed away back in 2013 if I recall. Jimmy you will have to update me on. There were some Mike's, and a Dennis. Dennis...what can I say, a great guy & died in a stupid way. A few in FDL & Oshkosh which the memory has taken. There was a Fred & a Dick...who was later taken over by his son Kevin, & a Don, not to mention some good people on Peachtree Industrial Blvd & St. Cloud Distribution as well as the lake. Everyone on the huge Mercury Team, no matter what they did, finance, sales, or nuts & bolts, were all the best at what they did & were just plain good people.

[FUJIMO]

[FUJIMO]

[Mark75H]

I can hear the water slapping the bottom of the boat

[willabee]

Mike Goerlitz passed away back in 2013 if I recall. Jimmy you will have to update me on. There were some Mike's, and a Dennis. Dennis...what can I say, a great guy & died in a stupid way. A few in FDL & Oshkosh which the memory has taken. There was a Fred & a Dick...who was later taken over by his son Kevin, & a Don, not to mention some good people on Peachtree Industrial Blvd & St. Cloud Distribution as well as the lake. Everyone on the huge Mercury Team, no matter what they did, finance, sales, or nuts & bolts, were all the best at what they did & were just plain good people.

Those names put you near the beginning of Hi Perf. I don't recall exactly when Mike passed, but 2013 sounds about right. He left Merc for a tour at Second Effort. I don't know about Jimmer, seems he came to my sister's funeral in Oshkosh a few years back. You might be thinking about Dennis Cavanaugh, he died after falling down some stairs. Lastly, I totally agree that there were a number of good people at Mercury.

[FUJIMO]

[WaterZebra]

Mike Goerlitz passed away back in 2013 if I recall. Jimmy you will have to update me on. There were some Mike's, and a Dennis. Dennis...what can I say, a great guy & died in a stupid way. A few in FDL & Oshkosh which the memory has taken. There was a Fred & a Dick...who was later taken over by his son Kevin, & a Don, not to mention some good people on Peachtree Industrial Blvd & St. Cloud Distribution as well as the lake. Everyone on the huge Mercury Team, no matter what they did, finance, sales, or nuts & bolts, were all the best at what they did & were just plain good people.

Boeing used to be like Mercury. Now look. The succession of clowns taking the wheel of CEO never ends. We used to MAKE everything on site including some exotic fasteners. Now they sub-out nearly all of it.

[FUJIMO]

Flashback. Gary Baltz. Another good guy. And the other Fred too. Hauenstein.

[FUJIMO]

[Onetime]

Fred Hauenstein, great guy. Since we all have a lot of time on our hands I’ll tell a story as best I can remember it.

1996 Fred was the president of Mercury Racing also the president of APBA. Kilo record runs were held in Northern California and we were attempting to break the Offshore C class record in a race 28 Skater. Fred was there in APBA capacity to certify the times and speeds.

The boat was Paul Whittier’s old Secret Agent boat that he had sold to Bryan Darling. Bryan renamed the boat Xplosive.

We had attempted the record the prior yer with Paul when he owned the boat. Paul went around 122 on the first pass and we knew the record was going to be shattered on the back up pass as the existing record was around 100. Unfortunately the left gearcase blew on the turn around for the run. I had my 24 Skater there and was prepared to rob anything from my boat for parts if needed. Never foresaw the need to build a gearcase there so didn’t bring any lower unit tools. The boat had the relatively new factory 15” midsections. My 24 had 20” midsections so couldn’t use my lower unless the 15” driveshaft was installed. No lower unit tools so we were done.

Paul sold the boat to Bryan that winter. Bryan with his friend and co owner in the boat John Pace were campaigning the boat in the POPBRA Offshore series on the west coast. It took a lot of convincing but managed to talk then into going for the record the following year knowing it could be easily had. Paul sold the boat to Bryan with the engines specifically built for the kilo runs along with the Offshore powerheads they were racing with. Bryan and John had no cat experience coming from only owning and driving V bottom boats.

So Bryan and John were making passes and not getting the speeds as they were driving the boat like a V bottom. They came pretty close to blowing the boat over. I’m on the radio, as is Fred listening and the other teams listening, trying to tell them how to trim the boat. Some of the other teams are trying to break the same record.

Offshore C class was primarily twin engine V bottom inboards but included Outboard powered cats. The engine specs we’re completely open to any modifications for the Outboards. Maximum 3.0 liter and no supercharging, turbocharging or nitrous. The engines we built for the kilo runs were 2.5 260 hp based engines with iron liner Z port sleeves. When we originally built them for Paul it was with a very short time period getting them built to be ready for the kilo runs. I had just designed the Z port sleeves and had received the first run from LA Sleeve. Not 100% sure but pretty sure these were the first Z port sleeves for the 2.5. With the short period of time to build and dyno these new engines it was decided that the best way to make the time schedule was for two builders to each build and dyno one. Ron Anderson would build one and I the other. So a powerhead was shipped to Ron in Washington and one to me in California. I shipped a set of sleeves to Ron. Both engines were built and endurance tested on each dyno. Ron and I had decided to mimic the kilo run by holding the engines at 8000 rpm with full load for a length of time we felt was equivalent to the run. They made 345 horsepower and held together.

Back to the kilo runs. Bryan and John had done six or eight runs and not getting anywhere near record speed. I was thinking these engines aren’t going to keep doing this so I radioed for them to come in. Gave them some more coaching on trimming properly for driving a cat at speeds. They would just keeping trimming up like you would a V bottom. We also picked a different radio frequency so I could coach them as they were going without any other chatter or listening on the frequency.

It worked and ran combined pass speeds of 114 mph which set the record. Knew the boat had more speed in it but was very concerned about the engines living much longer so we called it good. Upon returning to the dock we were greeted with your cheating, you don’t have any new record. The boat was roped off and no one could go near it until all the other boats and officials were back on shore. We had just beat the old record by at least 14 mph and no congratulations or anything.

Now back to Fred. All the record attempts for all classes are done. The inboard boats in C class best runs were just over 100 mph. Fred comes ashore from the official time keeper boat and walks over to Xplosive asking who owns this boat. Some of the people from California putting on the event tell Fred yes they know this boat is not legal and has no record. Fred looks at them and says what are you talking about. Meanwhile Bryan steps up stating he’s the owner of the boat. Fred asks him if he built the engines, Bryan says no and points to me. Fred comes up to me and asks if I built them. Upon saying yes he congratulates me, shaking my hand stating how listening to those engines making the passes was music to his ears. Others step up and protest again stating the boat is not legal. Fred asks what do you mean the class is open to all modifications just can’t be over 3.0. He looks at me and asks if the engines are over 3.0. I state they are 2.5 and don’t think it would possible to get over 3.0 from a 2.5 block. He states exactly and they have a new record!

[Lake X Kid]

Charlie Strang an intellect coveted by both his former bosses, Carl Kiekhaefer and Ralph Evinrude.

[Lake X Kid]

Bryon and John's kilo run of 114 mph speed record.

[Lake X Kid]

I’ll tell a story as best I can remember it.

With the short period of time to build and dyno these new engines it was decided that the best way to make the time schedule was for two builders to each build and dyno one. Ron Anderson would build one and I the other. So a powerhead was shipped to Ron in Washington and one to me in California. I shipped a set of sleeves to Ron. Both engines were built and endurance tested on each dyno. Ron and I had decided to mimic the kilo run by holding the engines at 8000 rpm with full load for a length of time we felt was equivalent to the run. They made 345 horsepower and held together.

Back to the kilo runs.

It worked and ran combined pass speeds of 114 mph which set the record. We had just beat the old record by at least 14 mph.

Onetime with the time constraints building the engines for the kilo run, did you have time to do some prop testing? To make sure you achieved the highest top-end boat speed at 8,000 rpm.

[Onetime]

Paul Whittier ordered the props based on our projected horsepower and rpm the engines would run and live.

Dennis Cavanaugh at Mercury Racing Propeller built the props. Dennis was the best and really nailed it perfectly on the props. They were labbed and thinned Mercury Racing three Blade cleavers. They were super thin and built just for the kilo run. Don’t think they would have lived very long in rough water offshore conditions.

The props were bolted on the boat for the first time when Paul made the record attempt in 1995. He had received them from Dennis just before leaving for California.