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I think part of what makes this class so popular right now is how fun and fast it is for such low cost. You can have a front running boat for around the $7k mark or if you're a DIY guy, even less again. There is still lots of 49s and 56ers out there for power heads. Gear cases may start to dry up one day but as long as someone is making gears, there is always the possibility of using the 2 cylinder cases and converting them. I think this class will go for many years yet before we will see it taken over by green motors. If racers had to dump $10k on just a motor, I'm sure this class would dry up really quick.

I believe the class record for that tunnel boat with your yamaha 70 ces is over 100 mph, a slight performance difference for 10 more oil slobbering hp!

Perhaps some tight billet heads from gig are in order with a change in fuel to be more environmental friendly!

Kevi, we should be OK for OMC gear cases and gears for a while Sea Way has both brand new.
A real advantage in the gear case is the Yamaha small case. Jim's yamaha still has its original case and even the used ones do not fail. The 60 Mercury 59 has prop shaft problems. The 49 Mercury case is excellent.
Several of the OMC failures were not due to the gear case itself.

Too bad, that is 20mph slower then the sst60s are going.

Let someone tinker/refine/blueprint, dial in boats, dial in props, dial in setup with this for 30 years and it will go 20 mph faster too.

Some are headed in the green direction in F1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2ZWqI8Xnfs

Not sure how it performed, perhaps Dave Ray has some goods on this one as I see the video is from Speedmaster.

I think the only reason we have not seen major 4 stroke outboard manufacturers like Honda. Suzuki and Yamaha jump into the race models is because they don't want to. There is not enough return on investment,
Bike racing increases bike sales, so they have invested and developed the bikes. If they wanted to they could build great race outboard 4 stroke motors. The 70 CES [Competition Electric Short] prefix 6J2 Yamaha was not a freebee. Yamaha was cost effective in this program. The motors were basic production models with added parts. The motors were more expensive and the added parts were costly. The rules made it necessary that you buy the Yamaha parts eventhough the aftermarket parts were better and 1/3 the price for equal or better performance. They did a production run of the special parts and once that stock was gone, no part support. They build the motors as a group once a year if they had orders.
4 Stroke outboard race motors would be very costly to develop unless they can easily switch some of the bike tricks into the outboards.
In T we don't need high tech 4 strokes we just need affordable 15 inch models.

We were going over 90 in sst60 right off that bat, in 1989.

My point wasn't to discourage development but to encourage Boomer to get a boat together the easiest and most economical way possible...so he'll actually come out and race AND enjoy it. To try and develop a competitive 4-stroke will take a lot of time and money for vertually no return. I'd love to see it done and or be part of it myself but I have a running race boat lol.

There is a new voodoo in my yard with a 4stroke 60 on it...and it's for sale if anyone wants to step up lol.

Negative Dok and Mitchie that's all I ever read! LOL