1986 60 back to life

[fishinmedic]

I rebuilt the carbs on my 60 that had been in storage for years due to not running right. I put her in the lake last week and she ran great, not new, but great. So, like every boater, I want more, hehe. A couple of questions. How can I get more power and fuel economy? Is this engine capable of being upgraded to a 70? Can this be done by getting more air flow? Or is it just bigger fuel jets? How hard is it to install a tach? This would make tuning the idle alot easier. Also, it had been vro bypassed years ago before I got the boat and there is no horn beep when you turn on the key. I'm assuming this is bad? Would the horn have been bypassed as part of the vro bypass? I don't have the exact info on the prop I can't read it all. But as near as I can tell it's 12 3/4 or 12 1/4, R and the rest of the numbers are hard to read despite cleaning. What I'm looking for is more top end speed. I want to fish some bigger lakes and will gladly sacrifice power for speed. Thanks in advance for all of your help and advice. BTW had it not been for this place, I would have never taken on the carb job on my own. Turns out, it really isn't that hard. Thanks again.

 

[oldcatamount]

Re: 1986 60 back to life

A 60hp motor has a fair amount of spunk (if it's tuned right) and it sounds like you are off to a good start. Forget the fuel economy! A motor of that size (with the right prop), will suck some serious gasoline no matter what you do to it. Upgrading to 70hp performance, in my opinion, is asking for trouble. Pay attention to the load in the boat and let the motor do it's thing. It's a well designed motor as is. Installing a tach is relatively simple. The wiring harness is color coded and the tach will come with instructions. I believe the "horn beep" you mentioned is a test sound for the overheat sensor. I have an '88 50hp that had the same issue and it turned out to be the horn itself was bad and I replaced it. Glad to see you're not afraid to work on this motor. You're saving a bunch of money and learning more about the motors needs.