A friend of mine has a ton of Mercury V-6's and parts. He has been working on them for many years. The other day we got into a discussion about how light we could build a Merc 200. We got his wife's bathroom scales and started weighing parts. We both thought that the early 80's chrome plated aluminum sleeve 2.4 blocks were the lightest, or maybe a high performance 2.5 with the nikasil aluminum sleeves. Just for fun we weighed a 2.5 liter steel bore block and it was light enough. It was a big surprise and a relief because they are plentiful. (At least at his place) Next, we went into the midsection room. We hit the lightest one the first try. It is about 12 pounds lighter than a new 2.5, and way lighter than any 3 liter. The cowl is a no brainer. The race cowl from the early 90's is feather light. It could be laser injected or carbureted with a slight weight advantage to the carbs. The carb motors do not need an ECU, so they are cheaper and there is less to go wrong. We sat down and did some calculations and figured we could build one that would dress out at between 330 and 350. A new Merc 200 weighs about 500 and the lightest 200 that I know of is an e-tec at 419. Are we going to build it? Well, he already has most of the parts. There are no plans for it, but we have been thinking about it for a long time. Incidentally if we port it and hop it up we could get 330 hp at the flywheel, but it would be a race motor then and not good for skiing. I have the port maps in my computer. So far it is just two old guys day dreaming. jim
Sweet motor, The 2.5s are great engines, I will try and get a picture up of my Dads last boat. After the Dyne he figured that he would go bigger so when he turned 50 (1996) he bought a 30 foot Hallett with triple 2.5s on it. He only kept it for 4 years (I guess the needing a new toy at 50 thing past) but it was a beautiful boat. Daniel
I'm thinking that if I ever build another custom Dyne, It would have a flat rear deck with no splash well. Use hydraulic side steer set up and run the shift and the other hose forward and into the deck California style. That would be a real clean look. The side steer might be a place for the ski rope to hang on and I might have to go center steer like the Seastar. The Seastar presents a little clearance problem with the flat deck though. It's fun to dream. jim
Youshould see the mod I had to do to get the sea star to work on the twin. The set-up was never intended to go on engines that are that close together in such a small well so I had to flip the brackets make 2 1inch spacers and use most of the old linkage from the ride guide that it had before. I will up load a picture in awhile for you to see. Daniel
