Facts about Evinrude/Johnson racing outboards made my OMC

[John Schubert]

John: Here's from the horses mouth; Trade Winds assembled Mod50’s at the plant in Manitowoc WI. Phil Meldahl ran TW at the time then moved to run the plant in Mexico. Clarance help set up a facility in Zion to assemble V-8 race engines prior to OMC buying Second effort.
John

Whose horses mouth. Phil Meldahl was first in HR in Corp office. He assisted me in my hiring process when I was hired by Jim Briggs. He then went to Tradewinds in Manawa where he stayed until moving to El Paso to build the new facility in Juarez for carbs & ignitions. I do now recall them building Mod 50’s in a Manawa. I vaguely remember the V 8 facility but by then I was no longer close to the race program, although I attended many races. The Zion facility many years prior could have been where the 8 barrel carbed V 4’s were built

[WaterZebra]

John: Here's from the horses mouth; Trade Winds assembled Mod50’s at the plant in Manitowoc WI. Phil Meldahl ran TW at the time then moved to run the plant in Mexico. Clarance help set up a facility in Zion to assemble V-8 race engines prior to OMC buying Second effort.
John

OMC NEVER owned 2nd Effort! It wasn't even a subsidiary of OMC. It was separated from the "mother ship" for a long list of liability issues and rightly so.

[John Schubert]

OMC NEVER owned 2nd Effort! It wasn't even a subsidiary of OMC. It was separated from the "mother ship" for a long list of liability issues and rightly so.

Where did that come from?? If OMC didn’t buy them, there was nothing in the office or buildings behind that wasn’t OMC Gary must have had a humongous monthly charge back. I do believe that Duke Waldrop the sales manager was on OMC’s payroll:

[Rotary John]

OMC NEVER owned 2nd Effort! It wasn't even a subsidiary of OMC. It was separated from the "mother ship" for a long list of liability issues and rightly so.

OMC did indeed buy out Garbrick. The facility was run by Niel brown after that.

[lars strom]

Our beautiful Lake of the Ozarks and the best marina lifestyle.
Thanks

— with Carina Strom at MarineMax Missouri.

[WaterZebra]

"The Jo/Ev 15A race engines were produced in the OMC production plant in Milwaukee, by many of the same people that produced the production 15hp fishing motors.

The Jo/Ev 45ss race engines were produced at Second Effort in Florida, by their team of technicians"

The 3 cylinder OMC engine started out life as the Triumph 55 hp. How big did the 2 cylinder grow to be? 55? 60?

[John Schubert]

Yes, I just looked at my parts catalog & it shows a manual pull start. Nevertheless I stand by what I’ve said, I don’t recall any being raced that way. I believe the picture of Jerry Weinent was Sam Hemps hydro that was used for all the prototype testing by Sam & used for that race.

OK, I must have had a gap in my memory bank prior to our starting to use tunnels rather then runabouts & hydros. For that, as Jackie Wilson would sy "sometimes you eat bear" but I will say "I'll eat Crow". I contacted a fellow former OMC engineer that was part of the 45 development team. Here is his answer.
Yes, the 45ss was originally designed only for hydro's and runabouts, using the old-fashioned side mounted recoil starter to keep the CG down.
Jerry Wienandt ran it in stock and mod races, as a rope start. He actually had it kick-back while starting at a race, and broke his finger. We then designed and released a dual spark advance system that allowed the driver to start the engine at low spark advance and then switch to high (normal) spark advance once started. Jerry got the first one ;-)
As far as I know, Jerry always drove the 45ss on his own boat.
I think that Phil Van Syckle was one of the other 45ss hydro drivers.
There were also a few from the Minnesota area.
Regarding the ignition system, the engine had the normal production CD2 ignition, which was fully flywheel magneto and used no battery.
I think the rope start 45ss, on hydros/runabouts, won numerous Stock Outboard races, including a National Championship or two.
In APBA Mod, 45ss rope start engines won multiple National Championships in FEH (850cc), including hydro and runabout, National High Point in FEH, plus a closed course record. Not bad for an engine that was inherently at a disadvantage against the larger displacement triples.
I think that DSH speeds were more of the comfort zone, which is very understandable.
When I was driving the 45ss on our A&H hydro, it would run 87+ mph, with very good punch. In fact, you needed to position/anchor yourself securely in the cockpit before hammering the throttle, as the boat would accelerate so hard that it tended to scoot out from under you.
In APBA Stock, the hydros ran with the tunnels for a while, until the transition to tunnels accelerated, which turned out to be the right decision, as the SST45 class provided good fun and competition for many years, as you know ;-)

On the water SST45 success was influenced significantly by creative boat designers and builders. Because of the modest power of the 45ss for a tunnel boat, boat design and set-up become more important than ever. From my memory, the Hoffman boat design evolution seemed to be the turning point, where it became clear that SST45 tunnel boats could be a successful package. I'm sure that other boat makers were having similar success.
And to think, it all started about 38 years ago........................
It actually started several years prior to that when I John Schubert built the first prototyoe in my workshop. Still the largest & most competitive OPC class ever

[lars strom]

I just got this Johnson poster from a friend of mine.

Victory with a stock (un-modified) 45SS rope-start engine..!!

[lars strom]

Testing the new OMC 15A proto-type engine for the first time.

[lars strom]

Close racing with the Jo/Ev 15A race engines.

[2us70]

Mr. Schubert. You are right on the money about the difficulty of getting a tunnel to work with smaller motors. My first tunnel boat was a McCall SE boat in 1968. At the time the default motor for SE was the 44in Mercury with the 3cyl OMC 49in motors just coming on the scene. I spent 6 months trying to get that boat to work with the Merc 50 with little success. I finally found a solution by putting my 110# wife in it. It ran great but she declined to race it. John McCall agreed to take the boat back in trade for a V-bottom boat. That V-bottom was the real fix. I raced it for 5 seasons and it was the right boat for 44in motor.

[lars strom]

Two very powerful Johnson racing V8 outboards.
Thanks Erik Nordskog.

...

[John Schubert]

I just got this Johnson poster from a friend of mine.
fE class was mod category not Stock Outboard
Victory with a stock (un-modified) 45SS rope-start engine..!!

FE class was mod category not Stock Outboard

[lars strom]

Yes I understand that but Jerry won with a Johnson 45SS engine that was in stock configuration (not modified), when raced in the Mod category (which does allow modifications).
If Jerry had modified his engine, he most likely would have won by a bigger margin.

[lars strom]

Jim Beurrier

The awesome crew that got it done in two weeks. I am 4th from the left.