1650 durability
 

I saw an IG post o 4 spares for the wake effects team and saw the photos of swaps in key west. Is this normal for race motors or is it a crappy motor? Its not like they are endurance races

Well Gieco is running them, when was the last time they finished a race??

I have heard that after 10 hours they should be rebuilt.

And I believe Geico has their own engine program. They are not drop in Merc 1650's.

Turbines last longer.

For a bit of clarity... The 1650s are RACE engines. They have a short life span...
In no way should they be considered engines for pleasure boats. They are RACE engines.
Some get 20 hours, some get 50....
You may see the Wake Effects and CMS crew changing engines at the races... It does not mean that they have failed. The team manager closely monitors the time and condition of engines.... They have several engines.... Changing out an engine out of an MTI is not a painful process... Not keeping your act together and loosing is painful.

For additional clarity, the Geico team handles managing and tuning of their own engines... They are not 100% out of the box Mercury engines assembled, tuned and built by Mercury Racing... Please do not confuse their reliability record with the engines built and delivered by the crew at Mercury.

Take note that Team Envy now has Mercury 1650s in their boat. The Envy team had a great Key West:)

Gary Stray builds/assembles the motors for Geico himself. There is a great TV show on Youtube sponsored buy Snapon that interviewed Stray on the subject. As Tim stated above they are race engines.

I don't know how true this is. I know that Geico got rid of their engine builder after their disastrous 2015 season(It was a speed on the water article). Apparently someone else was doing the engines in 2016.

I believe this was the article:
https://speedonthewater.com/in-the-n...N0cmF5J3MiXQ==

1650's = 25hrs max until refresh time according to Merc's website.
1350/1100 = 200hrs

Are you saying that the engines in CMS are 100% stock normal Merc 1650's like everyone else gets from Mercury?

You could be right. The video on Youtube is Behind the Garage: Snapon great garages. The video is 5 months old and Gary says in the video he assembled the top ends on the motors.

Yup, that's it. I was told that in Key West alone in 2015 they blew up all 5 of their motors that week. Had to borrow one from CRC just to make the start on Sunday.

Geiko now builds there engines in house. They are 1650 based (Overhead cam V8) but heavily modified.

would this be consistent with other race engines?

From the article
"The high-profile partnership between the offshore racing outfit and the engine builder (Mercury) lasted a year, but for economic reasons the two parties parted ways and Miss GEICO started its own in-house engine program based on the quad overhead cam, turbocharged engine platform. "
? does anyone know what that means

I think (if I read between the lines correctly) it means geico had issues, tried to fix issues, merc got upset because gieco was in the motors trying to fix things and told them to pack sand...... just a guess....

I read it as them not wanting to pay merc's rebuild costs.

Crazy stupid money

I've heard mercury won't even sell to Geico anymore.

Did they have a deal together and it went south ? Or just some major cursing ?

I agree. I don't care even if it was a major corporation paying when I say this...5 of those in one week-end....fuk that !

It's not about the "stock" 1650. Both MTI and geico are cranking them way up. MTI is doing it with mercury backing and geico is doing it on there own. This isn't about running a crate engine. MTI has been testing for Mercury for years. Crc was a 1200 boat when there was just a 1075. And when the 1350 came out MTI was able to raise the rev limit and found 6800 made things come loose. All in the works of the 1650. Now it's making 2000 +hp.

incorrect

So, you guys realize that anymore, the first team to pull the big honkin monster motors out, drop in 850's and finishes every race consistently can probably win a title......

lucas comes close to that

I Heard Jasper is supplying the motors and their own factory mechanic for Geico now.

And just about everyone watching wouldn't notice the speed difference if everyone used smaller engines