Making Boat Racing Great Again! by freeing you from the tyranny of proprietary factory ECUs. Cracker Bay Thundercats is prototyping a kit to replace the factory ECU with an aftermarket fuel injection controller. The first application is the Mercury 60 HP four stroke and at the heart of the kit is the Microsquirt EFI controller.
What’s the fuss?
Managing fuel/spark on a user programmable ECU means easy forced induction (turbo or super charger), e85 and nitrous control! No more reflashing ECU’s by mail.
In plain English, we’re putting the power of tinkering and hot rodding back in the hands of performance boating enthusiasts. Carburetors still have their place but two strokes are practically out of production, and carb’d two strokes are long gone. Modifying what’s currently available is an inevitable and necessary next step.
Why the Merc 60 4 stroke?
The Mercury 996cc four stroke hasn’t changed much over the past two decades. Besides a few external parts, the meat of the motor remains the same. The block, crank, pistons and camshaft are interchangeable from 1999 to 2019. What works on a cheap 20 year old pontoon boat motor can be applied to a new Formula Race 60.
The EFI 60 isn’t a slouch out of the box either.
Shaft Length. Although the only factory option for a 15″ midsection (~$500) is from the Mercury Racing Formula Race 60, the regular 20″ fishing motor still has promise.
Bump Stick. The factory camshaft has 170 degrees of duration but the rest of the motor looks as though it was built for more. Rule of thumb calculations suggest that intake runners and valves support peak torque at 7000 rpm. Adding camshaft duration and heavier valve springs let the motor breathe as it was originally intended.
bore/STROKE. The small pistons and large stroke mean this undersquare motor won’t rev to the moon for very long but it should be an excellent recipient for forced induction.
Gear Case. The regrettably popular Command Thrust version has 2.3:1 gears but the standard gearcase has the tried and true 1.83:1 ratio and a modest bullet.
What’s next?
Check back often and keep an eye out for news in the What’s Crackin’ section for kit progress and updates.
Following the success of getting triple digit horse power numbers out of the Mercury 60, we will look to conquer other engine platforms, perhaps Tohatsu.