Why only 300hp?

[waterinthefuel]

There seems to be a "glass ceiling" on the ponies produced by outboards. Jetski's get more powerful every year, why not outboards?

 

[cobra 3.0]

Re: Why only 300hp?

I suppose there's only so much weight you can put on a transom... and those that can take it have multiple outboards on the same boat.

 

[WillyBWright]

Re: Why only 300hp?

Keep an eye on the Verados. They can twist much more power from them than 300Hp by simply playing with the supercharger and software ... at the sacrifice of reliability I expect.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: Why only 300hp?

rumour has it a 320 or so is coming from yamaha, just looking at the F250 I can see an easy 600 HP from the powerhead with a bit of playing. however longevity may suffer and lower units will explode, as long as joe public does not mind a custom one off hull designed to handle the speed and weight of it along with the fuel bill and the gearcase now and again I see no problems.<br /> I was checking out an article sometime back about the fourmula1 1.9L motor that makes 600 HP, the builder said 100 more were obtainable but so far the transaxles could not take it.<br />but if cost is no object some one off gearcases can be had.

 

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: Why only 300hp?

You can alter a Verado's software and get quite a bit more out of it....Then they go boom and you buy a new Verado.

 

[JRJ]

Re: Why only 300hp?

Lots of rumors of O/B's with well over 300hp in the near future

 

[rodbolt]

Re: Why only 300hp?

possibly, once they overcome the gearcase drag issue, most cases are at about the max for daily use. if ya got a 250 HP that is borderline on gearcase relability and ya make it 15% bigger your gonna need about 375 Ponies to get back to where the 250 HP started.<br /> bigger case means quite a bit more drag which eats a bunch of ponies at the fuel dock.

 

[Dhadley]

Re: Why only 300hp?

They're on the way. One company ran some bigger stuff last week.

 

[CFronzek]

Re: Why only 300hp?

It's not a "glass' ceiling it's an engineering ceiling. <br />Traditionally outboards were not highly stressed because reliabilty was more important. <br />The HP potential for 2-stroke motors is sky high. Racing motorcycles were making 160 HP (unsupercharged) with just 30 cubic inches. And that was 15 years ago. But the motors were so small and overstressed they were always on the edge of destruction. <br />The big bugaboo is heat. More HP means a lot more heat to get rid of. And a system that depends on sucking up unfiltered water where debris is all around would not be conducive to keeping a hot motor alive. <br />I saw a cutaway of a top end, supercharged outboard. It was so complicated and so expensive that only a drug runner would bother with it.

 

[JRJ]

Re: Why only 300hp?

Originally posted by CuyahogaChuck:<br /> It's not a "glass' ceiling it's an engineering ceiling. <br />Traditionally outboards were not highly stressed because reliabilty was more important. <br />The HP potential for 2-stroke motors is sky high. Racing motorcycles were making 160 HP (unsupercharged) with just 30 cubic inches. And that was 15 years ago. But the motors were so small and overstressed they were always on the edge of destruction. <br />The big bugaboo is heat. More HP means a lot more heat to get rid of. And a system that depends on sucking up unfiltered water where debris is all around would not be conducive to keeping a hot motor alive. <br />I saw a cutaway of a top end, supercharged outboard. It was so complicated and so expensive that only a drug runner would bother with it.

Get ready for the sky to fall. More HP is on the way

 

[Dhadley]

Re: Why only 300hp?

Also think about the timeframe when the 300's first showed up. The mid 80's. Merc and OMC were the two biggies and they both had their versions. Yamaha was just coming in the US market. The EPA was making noise about lower emmissions. There weren't a lot of boats around that were built to handle those motors. Most were converted, in some fashion, I/O's. <br /><br />Merc and OMC had an unwritten agreement that enough was enough - or 300 to be exact. There was a mass movement of OMC top folks ending up at Mercury and vise versa. <br /><br />Yamaha was taking a big bite out of their market. OMC and Merc were scrambling to protect the market share they had. And were now losing big portions to Yamaha. <br /><br />Lots of stuff going on at that time. It was very interesting to say the least.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: Why only 300hp?

and we keep getting romours of a 325HP normally aspirated V8 4 stroke.<br /> but this latsest gas price thing may squash some of the HP race.<br /> myself I can see closed cooling on the 4 strokes in the future to comply with tightening EPA standards.<br />catalytic converters are on the way as well.