Biggest outboard ever?

[disorderly]

Just looking at that awesome Verado 350 thread and I was wondering just how big will outboards become.
I haven't even seen a 300 let alone a 350 but even a 250 is a bloody big motor to be bolting onto your transom.

Just how big can they get and when do they reach a point of diminishing returns?

Is it better to have twin 175's rather than a 350 anyway?.

What's the likelihood of seeing a 500hp outboard hanging off off a 25' or 30' boat anytime soon?

scott

.

[Wahoo]

Just looking at that awesome Verado 350 thread and I was wondering just how big will outboards become.
I haven't even seen a 300 let alone a 350 but even a 250 is a bloody big motor to be bolting onto your transom.

Just how big can they get and when do they reach a point of diminishing returns?

Is it better to have twin 175's rather than a 350 anyway?.

What's the likelihood of seeing a 500hp outboard hanging off off a 25' or 30' boat anytime soon?

scott

.


Damn Scott........ the bigger the better;D


Daz

[screaming reels]

g'day disor,a single 350 will give you more top end speed but prob note as good hole shot (could be corrected)as to largest outboard i remember (i think name- Darren)from a service outlet for hydrive steering just down in one of the factorys near ney rd lights at capalaba had a old evinrude @ 435hp V8 hagging up in workshop(he used to race them with twin setups)but i'm really streching my memory now prob 8 years ago, drunk a few burbs since then.

[FNQCairns]

The true problem is the size of the leg bulb needed to get all that power reliably around a 90deg corner to spin a prop. They can only be made so large before at speed the they will blow out and before then simply rob buckets of HP.

We are at the end of the road in HP for outboards for this reason only (have been for 30 years or so), sure they could make one small enough if they used space shuttle materials but the price would be just plain silly.

cheers fnq

[tunaticer]

Technically there is very little to stop someone from developing a 1000hp outboard apart from a market for them. With the advent of supercharged Verados we could well be looking at the 1000hp within the next ten years I reckon.
I guess time will tell the longevity of supercharged outboards as they are incredibly small capacity to produce the horses they do. I was told the 275 Verado is 2.4L and the naturally aspirated 150 etec was the same size...10cc different but nearly double the horsepower.

Jack.

[bobp]

i dont think this is the end of the hp wars
the others won't want to let merc and yamy run away
besides dont think 350 is the end for the verado seeing as they where getting 450hp from the gen 1 preproduction motor 4 or 5 years ago

[Wahoo]

Technically there is very little to stop someone from developing a 1000hp outboard apart from a market for them. With the advent of supercharged Verados we could well be looking at the 1000hp within the next ten years I reckon.
I guess time will tell the longevity of supercharged outboards as they are incredibly small capacity to produce the horses they do. I was told the 275 Verado is 2.4L and the naturally aspirated 150 etec was the same size...10cc different but nearly double the horsepower.

Jack.

G'day Jack

the 150 etec is just on 2.6l same as the 275 Verado

the 300 +hp champ is a 2.5l apples for apples


as for the longevity of the Verados, they are built for this, no other motor on the market runs the internal parts as the Verado, every thing is to a higher standard, and i think they have been around near on 10yrs now

cheers

Daz

[BM]

I recall reading a Merc article a while back that mentioned the Verado platform was good for at least 500hp without major redesign work.

Cheers

[Outsider1]

Where they will run into problems is not the overall power output, but keeping the torque contained. As FNQCairns says, the legs (and gearboxes) simply won't be able to handle it.

Mercedes/AMG ran into the same problem with their supercharged V8 motors. There was only one gear box made in the world that could handle the torque. Subsequently Mercedes dropped the supercharged motor and went for a larger capacity normally aspirated motor which enabled them to fit a more sophisticated 7 speed gearbox.

Cheers

DJ

[eldeas]

seen 1 with tripple 350

[Fatenhappy]

Yammy has had its 350 V8 5 odd litre monster out for a while now, but that's in the land of 4 strokes ...

[BaitThrower]

When petrol goes to $3 a litre, you probably wont see any of them on recreational boats (except for the ultra richos) :)

[BM]

As a side mention, Volvo had a V12 outboard around in the 70's.

The OMC V8's were only around for about 2-3 yrs. They were mainly raced and not too many made it to the recreational market due to reliability issues. The racing market rebuilt the engines after each race so reliability was not a concern.

Mercury's racing boxes can handle humungous hp, however they are very expensive and have a functional lifespan of around 10hrs before rebuilding them. Again a racing thing really. Never viable in the recreational market.

Perhaps when they get into monster hp they may have to start looking at alternate forms of propulsion (ie: jet). I'm not sure about that though.

Cheers

[Tassie JR]

I heard suzi is meant to be bringing a 400hp out next year. And it is meant to use a touch less fuel then the 300 suzi an hour.

cheers tassie JR

[Outsider1]

Saw a report somewhere on the Yammy 350 V8. Fuel consumption at cruise speed was about 60 litres/hour if I remember correctly.

Sounds a fair bit, but compared to an equivalent petrol V8 inboard that is pretty frugal really. So they will have their place in the scheme of things, some of the larger cats for instance where the current choices are limited to diesels, and as alternatives for 7.2m+ to 10m monos that only have sterndrive or shaft drive options now. They should be considerably cheaper than the inboard options to purchase, install and maintain.

Most of the other manufacturers have 300hp options out now.

Cheers

Dave