To plug or not to plug......Merc 15

[Matt Dagostino]

Seems a new 'grey area' has been exposed and several drivers have been plugging the Merc 15's and competing in all the J-Classes with the motors.

By plugging the thermostat housing totally no water drains onto the tuner pipe and consequently makes the motor go faster............

This speed modification came to light after the 2009 Nationals. We can argue the wording of the thermostat language all day long but the bigger question is should we plug the motor or not???

Sooooo, the question is should the J Committee tighten up the current rule and not allow the motor to be plugged or just let it ride and inform the membership how to properly plug the motor so all drivers will be on 'a level playing field'.

[csh12M]

Great question

Very good point,

I am helping a new family, "the Wellings", and we learned to do this mid-season. I do not really care which way people go on this, BUT if the decision is to "plug" the motor. Then I think that they should be plugged prior to shipping. I also think they should be "blueprinted" prior to shipping to new people. Make the motor "race ready" or at least offer it as an option for the "new inexperienced" racers. Reduce the "Barriers to Entry". Blueprinting and Plugging are barriers, in my opinion.

Just a quick 2 cents.
12M

[Brew56]

I agree 100% with Dean on this. He could not have said it any better. If they cannot find a way to have it plugged prior to shipping, I think it should not be plugged.

We have to improve how we encourage more new racers and how to keep the kids we've got.

[Big Don]

It clearly states the following…

It is permissible to remove the thermostat and to restrict the water in any manner within the thermostat housing. So what is being done is legal under the rule.

Now I am just assuming here, but I think the reason they did this WAS to level the playing field. We know there were racers/parents/engine builders already doing this prior to this rule being implemented and have since the Mercury came out. We all know the people that look for this stuff and push the rules. I have to think the thinking was we can’t catch the people doing it so let’s level the playing field. They were drying the tower by doing it at the tower and the only way to find it is to pull the power head. That does not happen but at the nationals. And the rumor was that there were some that were blocking the water internally in the black so you would never catch it.

Do I agree with this….NO. That is why I have said for years now we have to get tougher on blatant cheating. Yes it would be hard to throw a 10 year old kid out for 5 years but let his parents explain that they cheated and that is why they can’t race now for 5 years. Now the difficult part is what you do when a port is to high or some other technical disqualification. You can have different levels like we do for some fuel disqualifications.

It’s the same crap we went through with the OMC.

We were not doing it until the last two races last year in AX. Why? I don’t go looking for loop holes in the rules. One could argue it’s not a loop hole if it says you can do it. Debatable. Someone else came to me and asked if we had tried it yet because they were hearing that it was at least 2 MPH is J. Since we don’t race J any more we tried it in AX. We did not see that much of an increase in AX but we did see something. I have had other people tell be it’s 1 MPH in AX it wasn’t for us. We didn’t race AX at all this year so we didn’t test it any more.

As for what do we do now. I don’t know. I say leave it if we are not going to have a stiff penalty for those caught.

[swheeler]

To those that say the engines should be blueprinted prior to sale I have to ask to what extent. Honing? Porting? Also, who should do the blueprinting and how much more should APBA charge for the engines? When you talk about barriers to entry isn't cost one of those barriers? Also, what do you do with all the engines that are already in the field? What about the person who buys a used fishing engine and converts it.
If you want to change rules and forbid plugging the water passage in the t-stat cover fine, require the original t-stat if you want to. Just don't go nuts with a catagory that is as well governed as any that APBA has to offer.

[Graham 18ce]

Yet another perfect reason why the Sindwinders should be a seal motor and only authorized people should be able to work on them.
We all know people are out there for any advantage they can get - legal or not. I'm out there to race. I hate going to the machine shop. I just want something as close to even as i can get and don't want have think about the guys out there that are cutting this and that and pluging here and there to gain a mile an hour. just to find out two, three or five years later, well, we can't beat them, lets make it legal.

[snyder]

Welll from our experience, drying the tower definitly helps with the planning issue. I guess that would be an added plus.

[thepiranhabros]

Interesting thread, and I know I'm going to take a lot of flak for this comment, but here goes.

Shouldn't our first (and PRIMARY) concern with the J category deal with getting the kids experience, seat time, and a real sense of knowing how to handle their boats, rather than dinking around with the engines to make them go one or two miles per hour faster? What good is that extra speed going to do if a kid doesn't know how to handle it due to inexperience?

Alrighty then... let me have it. S'okay; I have big shoulders.

Michael Mackey
21-V

[steve smith 150m]

I would like to know how many high points J and AX have been won in the last five years with a dry tower. Are there parents out there who would like to fess up? Probably not. You know who you are, shame on you. You would compete all year racking up points with no fear of a tear down. Many of us knew who was doing this, but didn't make an issue, because their kids didn't know. I remember the sound of the motor from Wisconsin, as it dominated so many races, and wondered what they knew that nobody else did. Rest assured, I will not tell your children...that's up to you.

[csh12M]

Steve reply...

Yes, I think it should be honing and porting. Most racers end up getting it done anyway, offer full blueprinting as an option. My experience from attracting new members is teaching me this..."In general", the people that can afford to race and have disposable income do not have a lot of time or experience. We need to offer a true "race ready" motor, and by race ready I mean ready to win.

Wellings had no problem with the cost of the equipment, but this whole issue of plugging and "being in the know" on the secrets was not appealing.

How would you feel if you were new, put down your money only to find out that at the end of the season you were getting beat by "grey areas" in the rules.

Offer it as an option.

BTW I think it is legal the way the rules are written. It did increase our speeds approx. 1mph.

[BP125V]

experience?

Interesting thread, and I know I'm going to take a lot of flak for this comment, but here goes.

Shouldn't our first (and PRIMARY) concern with the J category deal with getting the kids experience, seat time, and a real sense of knowing how to handle their boats, rather than dinking around with the engines to make them go one or two miles per hour faster? What good is that extra speed going to do if a kid doesn't know how to handle it due to inexperience?

Alrighty then... let me have it. S'okay; I have big shoulders.

Michael Mackey
21-V

Mackey,

I think taking your kid testing once in while would help with the "experience" thing.

Bill

[doc 35-0]

We had heating issues, sometimes we pluged the thermastat and sometimes we didn't. We won a few races without being plugged especially in the Axs. I would like to see the engine get as much cooling as possible. Can you plug the pipe between the block and the lower unit. This would not be legal and very difficult to police, even at the nationals. If that is the case, make it legal and everyone should know. When you buy a motor, a short note should be attached as to the methods of improveing the motor and they would have some options. The biggest improvement to the class would be to lower the motor a quarter of an inch and most of the problems of getting on plane would be solved. J takes too much time and is very stressfull on the kids that can not get on plane. Kids like to win just like everyone else and unfortuntely speed secrets will always be out there.

[Team B&H]

As they guy who pushed for this rule in the first place, I have to say I screwed up by not understanding completely how the water system on the Merc worked. We ran our motor totally stock the first year. There were more than enough issues to figure out to get the carburetor to work in smooth and rough conditions. That winter, I pulled the motor apart and saw some cooling issues on the exhaust side of the top piston which I attributed to the thermostat and not getting water to that area when planning off with a cold motor. No rule said you could remove the thermostat then. So I proposed allowing the thermostat to be removed and further to restrict the water exiting at the tell-tale hose to allow more water to go thru the motor for cooling because the OMC gearcase does not provide an over-abundance of water. The intent of restricting the tell-tale outlet got worded as the present rule.

The general understanding of the motor is better now and people have discovered that blocking the slot next to the thermostat will block off all water to the small exit hole on the exhaust pipe. You can easily hear the difference with a plugged motor regardless of it being in first or last place.

The current rule was never intended to allow plugging water to the exhaust but inadvertently allowed. I've often complained about poorly written rules allowing something that was never originally intended so I take the blame for this problem. I believe the rule was changed for the 2000 or 2001 season so its taken some time to be discovered and exploited this season.

So what to do now? It is pretty easy to write a better rule now that more is known about the motor. If plugging is not allowed, it is pretty easy for an inspector to listen to Js and hear the difference. All he has to do is put the rig on a cart so the water pickup is in the water and the exhaust outlet is above and run the motor. If no water comes out the rear exhaust outlet, it is plugged somewhere. Some may say that you can simply pull off the thermostat housing and look to see if it is plugged there but that assumes that there is no other place to plug the water. On a complete tear down, the inspector can readily observe the pattern the water makes on the exhaust pipe. Unless of course, he has a bias against the Mercs and makes them wait to be inspected last so by then it is so dark he can't see the obvious pattern or the lack of it.

Or if plugging is allowed it simplifies the Merc inspection to a point but also changes the competitive balance against the OMC. For that reason, I would like to see plugging not be allowed and inspectors educated on how to easily inspect for it with the running motor test.

Plugging water into the exhaust housing of all sorts of motors has been going on for years and for the most part has been undetected by inspectors. I know of motors winning championships in a number of Stock Outboard classes that were plugged including Mercs, OMCs and Hot Rods. It was even one of the secrets Roark Summerford and Rusty Cambell used on their MOD V-P rig in the OPC division.

[Fast Jack]

J rules

The rules state that this is leagle.. case closed.. If you dont like the rules , go to the national meeting, do your homework, and show the Commitee what is wrong , and how to fix it.. I did last year and it worked. We have 1 APBA motor and 2 E bay - build it yourself motors. The rules are written so we can have guidelines how to build our own. I have had the best times with Jack as we built his boats and motors. He has seen that hard work and paying attention to details can offer great rewards. The boats and motors we built have given him the satisfaction of knowing he can do well. On a limited season he has averaged 400 points per start in JR and 300+ in Jh. Innovation has always been a part of racing. From The pine wood derby at Cub scouts to Nascar reading the rule book has made winners. Keep the tradition alive. Dont try to fix what aint broke. Shawn( Proud as hell to be a J dad)

[carl]

to plug or not to plug

Fast Jack I agree with everything you said except your last few words. Are you proud for your sons racing ability or are you proud that all your work done on the engine (being legal or not only you know?????). I personally think that it is an ego trip that the parents are on, having a "winner" in the family. But don't dispair I've seen it in all kids sports. Kids making "rep" teams in all sorts of sports and then witnessing the parents "strutting around" as if to say look what my "Johnny or Susie" accomplished!
Carl