Mercury Racing and Ilmor Marine Make Power Moves for 2012
 

Although this story was written for the more-general audience of Boats.com and in parts is "old news" to a lot of you, it does present a good overview of what's gone on and—thanks to the Related Stories at the end—what's going, http://speedonthewater.com/new-boats...-for-2012.html.

Have a great weekend.

Old news. I'm waiting for the 800-900hp Ilmor twin turbo V10.

why so you can talk about something else you can't buy? :)

Old news, definitely, to a degree, but from a perspective you might not have considered.

As for the Ilmor engine you await, that's not the direction in which Ilmor is heading. But that, too, is old news,

Don't take my word for it. Here's a quote from Paul Ray, the president of Ilmor Marine, from a speedonthewater.com story that ran a year ago this month:

“You’re not going to see any big power from Ilmor—not for awhile,” said Ray last Friday at the Desert Storm event in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. “We don’t think that’s the right place in the market. You can cater to the big-boat guys, but there are very few of those boats sold in reality. We can’t dive into a market that is already overpopulated with guys building big supercharged and turbocharged engines and say to ourselves, ‘This is a great business plan.’ So we’re looking to go smaller. We’re looking at the other end.

“If there is going to be a resurgence in the high-performance market—and obviously we think there is—it’s got to come from the entry level,” Ray continued. “We already have engines from 270 to 440 hp (built for the MasterCraft tow boat line) and those would be perfect for smaller performance boats. You can’t finance a big boat—you can’t finance almost any boat now. But if you’re going to have a chance of financing a new boat, which is where the new customers are going to come from, it’s got to be with small, more-practical boats. Ultimately, those buyers will move up to bigger boats.
But this industry will die—it will die—if the manufacturers don’t start paying attention to the smaller-boat market.”

That's right swamp boy. :)

Agreed..a better business model....this will produce a steady cash flow so that they will have coin for R&D of the larger motors to compete against Merc.....at a later time. Jeff

Their current motor makes 725 hp in a naturally aspirated state, would not even think about buying a twin turbo motor from them unless it was 1,100 HP or more as that would just be a waste of turbocharging in my mind.

+1

Very well said Paul very smart man that was our plan 4 Years ago when I started my. LS engine program and could not be happier with them

There's no such thing..... :lolhit: