Mercury racing 360 hp NA v8

[Spectre Powerboats]

Many people do not realize that a revised F1 class using a carbureted 2.5 or the Optimax has made a huge come back in the past 4 years in the USA. Every race has had a minimum of 20 plus boats. Even with COVID this year, all the races were cancelled, but one. We had 25 F1 boats at the Springfield Ohio's race and about 50 boats in other classes there. Show me another boat racing class with approx. a 70 plus boat attendance.

So, unless you have been a part of saving this sport in anyway over the past 4 years. You might want to just keep doing what you are doing, sit back, eat your popcorn, maybe stay off your keyboard and quit being a Debbie Downer, and leave it to the guys trying to save this great sport.

Todd Lamb

[Chaz]

Todd .. stop and look at what you just said.

Many people do not realize that a revised F1 class using a carbureted 2.5

What those people did, was find an affordable hobby , using affordable power .

Go ahead and tell those guys , good news fella's .. to be competitive in 2021 all ya gotta do is buy a $60,000.00+ dollar motor ...

Let us know how that works out for your grass roots class ...

[powerabout]

Todd .. stop and look at what you just said.




[/COLOR]What those people did, was find an affordable hobby , using affordable power .

Go ahead and tell those guys , good news fella's .. to be competitive in 2021 all ya gotta do is buy a $60,000.00+ dollar motor ...

Let us know how that works out for your grass roots class ...

seems to agree with what I said along with the same result in Australia from using a carby FF block as an F1 engine.
Cheap to buy
Cheap to run
Easy to find
sounds like a future...

[Spectre Powerboats]

Todd .. stop and look at what you just said.




[/COLOR]What those people did, was find an affordable hobby , using affordable power .

Go ahead and tell those guys , good news fella's .. to be competitive in 2021 all ya gotta do is buy a $60,000.00+ dollar motor ...

Let us know how that works out for your grass roots class ...

Mercury stopped building the S3000 F1 motors many years ago and before that stopped building cowl to gearcase motors. So, how do you have a F1 S3000 class with no new inventory. When I was building F1's years ago, do you know how hard it was to tell guys they were buying a new boat from us, but we would have to buy used parts and pieces to put together a S3000, mid and #4, not to easy. This is what forced the hand of of a revised class. Yes, times are tough, sponsors are thin, but there are guys out there wanting and willing to run true F1. Believe it or not, sponsorship is up a bunch thank you to Pres. Trump.

When I was apart of any F1 Teams, we were seeing a minimum of two powerheads (usually 4 or more in the trailer) used in a weekend, stuffing new pistons, rings, bearings and gaskets in each one after a race. Injectors being sent off. Then two races later, stuffing all of that in them again plus cranks and rods. The maintaining the S3000 is very expensive. For most of the F1 teams, the maintenance is over $100k a year, not including shipping them off ahead of time to have guys like Powers, HLedin, Anderson, and other great engine builders put there $10k-$15k tweaks on each powerhead. Better yet, scatter a few and the $200k range has been achieved by many teams.

The initial investment into the new 4 stroke will be costly, but if the maintaining part of them can be kept down, it will be more affordable in the long run. The last S3000 I bought new was $30k. Sent it off to be tweaked another $12k. So, we are at $42K in a 2-stroke that will require about $15k to $20k easily in a season (if it does not get scattered.) So when I look at the whole package at $55k, I see a big investment, but a better deal.

[JPEROG]

Mercury stopped building the S3000 F1 motors many years ago and before that stopped building cowl to gearcase motors. So, how do you have a F1 S3000 class with no new inventory. When I was building F1's years ago, do you know how hard it was to tell guys they were buying a new boat from us, but we would have to buy used parts and pieces to put together a S3000, mid and #4, not to easy. This is what forced the hand of of a revised class. Yes, times are tough, sponsors are thin, but there are guys out there wanting and willing to run true F1. Believe it or not, sponsorship is up a bunch thank you to Pres. Trump.

When I was apart of any F1 Teams, we were seeing a minimum of two powerheads (usually 4 or more in the trailer) used in a weekend, stuffing new pistons, rings, bearings and gaskets in each one after a race. Injectors being sent off. Then two races later, stuffing all of that in them again plus cranks and rods. The maintaining the S3000 is very expensive. For most of the F1 teams, the maintenance is over $100k a year, not including shipping them off ahead of time to have guys like Powers, HLedin, Anderson, and other great engine builders put there $10k-$15k tweaks on each powerhead. Better yet, scatter a few and the $200k range has been achieved by many teams.

The initial investment into the new 4 stroke will be costly, but if the maintaining part of them can be kept down, it will be more affordable in the long run. The last S3000 I bought new was $30k. Sent it off to be tweaked another $12k. So, we are at $42K in a 2-stroke that will require about $15k to $20k easily in a season (if it does not get scattered.) So when I look at the whole package at $55k, I see a big investment, but a better deal.

Todd,

You didn't mention the time factor of having parts sent out. A guy like me could never get a motor back together in time for the next race unless you had 4 or 5 of them in the rotation (Brenden can't be available for everyone "all the time"). They did hours of endurance testing on this 91 octane set up that would have required multiple rebuilds on the previous high strung motors. The EU tree huggers are off their ass so it will open up more venue locations, it will be more affordable, and it still runs the same lap times- Water quality is a major deal over there-(I was in Salzburg Austria on a major body of water "lake Mondsee" and there was 2 power boats allowed 1. my friends "ski school instruction" boat and 2. The police-Everything else is electric or sail.

This motor will potentially allow lower class teams the affordbility to move up and grow. Everyone is saying "55K is so much money". Name any major form of motorsport where front runners don't have a 100K invested--its just where we are at.

I will be glad to see you doing what you were 20 years ago and running with the big guys again.

Joe

[Spectre Powerboats]

Todd,

You didn't mention the time factor of having parts sent out. A guy like me could never get a motor back together in time for the next race unless you had 4 or 5 of them in the rotation (Brenden can't be available for everyone "all the time"). They did hours of endurance testing on this 91 octane set up that would have required multiple rebuilds on the previous high strung motors. The EU tree huggers are off their ass so it will open up more venue locations, it will be more affordable, and it still runs the same lap times- Water quality is a major deal over there-(I was in Salzburg Austria on a major body of water "lake Mondsee" and there was 2 power boats allowed 1. my friends "ski school instruction" boat and 2. The police-Everything else is electric or sail.

This motor will potentially allow lower class teams the affordbility to move up and grow. Everyone is saying "55K is so much money". Name any major form of motorsport where front runners don't have a 100K invested--its just where we are at.

I will be glad to see you doing what you were 20 years ago and running with the big guys again.

Joe

Amen and Thank you Joe.

[largecar91]

Many people do not realize that a revised F1 class using a carbureted 2.5 or the Optimax has made a huge come back in the past 4 years in the USA. Every race has had a minimum of 20 plus boats. Even with COVID this year, all the races were cancelled, but one. We had 25 F1 boats at the Springfield Ohio's race and about 50 boats in other classes there. Show me another boat racing class with approx. a 70 plus boat attendance.

So, unless you have been a part of saving this sport in anyway over the past 4 years. You might want to just keep doing what you are doing, sit back, eat your popcorn, maybe stay off your keyboard and quit being a Debbie Downer, and leave it to the guys trying to save this great sport.

Todd Lamb

Damn that's a nice looking boat! Sure is some ugly guy driving it

[Capt.Insane-o]

Per rules I built one that is on my Vector. They run pretty damn good for the maybe 600 bucks I have invested. The 3000 I bought 12 years ago was 24k.

[Risco]

Many people do not realize that a revised F1 class using a carbureted 2.5 or the Optimax has made a huge come back in the past 4 years in the USA. Every race has had a minimum of 20 plus boats. Even with COVID this year, all the races were cancelled, but one. We had 25 F1 boats at the Springfield Ohio's race and about 50 boats in other classes there. Show me another boat racing class with approx. a 70 plus boat attendance.

So, unless you have been a part of saving this sport in anyway over the past 4 years. You might want to just keep doing what you are doing, sit back, eat your popcorn, maybe stay off your keyboard and quit being a Debbie Downer, and leave it to the guys trying to save this great sport.

Todd Lamb

I can’t agree more!!!!! Awesome news to hear your going to racing again Todd

[Spectre Powerboats]

Damn that's a nice looking boat! Sure is some ugly guy driving it

Should have seen the driver who use to drive it. Look like he hit ever branch on the ugly tree when he fell out. Miss ya bud! Gonna have to get together soon.

[Chaz]

Oh i see now ... I should have known that a S3000 or 300 drag ... is a 2.5 carb motor.
I mean you did say ​2.5L Carbureted , did you not ... ???

Yes Joe, I see you point .. it's gotta be cheaper to buy a or more realistic , a couple few $60,000.00 dollar motor's . Than it is to build and maintain some 2.5L carb motors.
Just look on post #173 . The capt. was out $600.00 a copy for one.
At that rate, a racer can only build 100 class legal motors for what a new porkchop would cost ...
I'll send ya a new battery for your calculator ... <---(merc kool-aid)

But hey , it is F-1 .. which does mean cubic yards of money...

Hopefully when your 70 member class dwindles down to 7 . There is someone in the group with enough common sense to look around and see no oil sheik's or foreign country's propping up the series and offer the 63 displaced racers a place to race.

Usually in racing , the 63 will kick the 7 to the curb .. and continue without missing a beat ... Maybe the 7 will be allowed to put on a "exhibition class" . Seen it plenty of times before . Todd , go ask your neighbor Bill Bader how it was when he Killed the Q-8 . Then called it Super eliminator , then Pro Outlaw , then moved Top Dragster and Top Sportsman from 32 to 48 cars .
That's right the 8 moved on and became Pro Top Outlaw
They went back to 32 cars in the other classes
And now the IHRA has no more National events
Although , it's a shame that it happened ... they were warned by 100's of members.
You know what mama said ....

[FUJIMO]

"I'm not sure a new engine has ever revived any motorsport category?"

...oh come on, that's just not true...remember the new 25 Merc for the Cougar Cub Races?...it revived offshore racing all by itself!...Every offshore race team had at least two of them......lol

[FUJIMO]

[Whaaaaat]

Isn't this how all racing works, someone starts a class, people see loopholes in the rules to exploit, then money gets thrown around to the engine "builders, massagers, tuners" until the square "stock" engine fits thru the round loophole? Then the guys whose pockets aren't deep enough to pay the cost to build engines that fit in the loopholes get pushed out.

[Whaaaaat]

Isn't this how all racing works, someone starts a class, people see loopholes in the rules to exploit, then money gets thrown around to the engine "builders, massagers, tuners" until the square "stock" engine fits thru the round loophole? Then the guys whose pockets aren't deep enough to pay the cost to build engines that fit in the loopholes get pushed out.

Before long the affordable $x price engine that was supposed to last all season now cost $xxx,xxx and last all race, most days,.