tie bar adjustment
 

I have a twin outboard setup and want to adjust the motor allignment to see if there is anything to be gained going in or out with the toe adjustment, I currently have about a 1/2" toe out, I do not know how much deflection I get at speed thou...can I really remove the tie bar at speed to adjust?? I would think the motors would pull into each other causing serious damage to the props

how many have tried this?

There are many opinions out there about this.

I have never heard a Merc rep. tell me to START with toe-out, but the force of the forward motion is supposed to push towards toe-out, start off with them parallel or with a very slight toe-in.

I would advise against any adjusting while underway.

Good luck and be careful.

I don't know about eggbeaters, but I had a boat with twin alpha drives that ran, and handled the best with a quarter inch toe in.

TieBar Adjustment
 

What is your definition of "toe"? The leading edge of each gearcase?

"toe" would be the propshaft center, in my case the leading edge of the gearcase is 1/2" closer than propshafts center

I ran my boat with around 1/8" toe in. That is where it was when I got it and it stayed there. Twin Bravo though. From what I have read most run slight toe in.

Mine was setup with 1/4" toe in. On a staggered Bravo setup. I now have them set at 0 toe and have yet to run it.

Toe
 

"Toe" is the leading, or front edge of the gearcase. It came to be called this as lower unit slang, as lower units(gearcases) were called a "foot". This derived from slang use of the phrase "lower leg" or simply "leg", to describe the lower section of an outboard, by people in the marine business. When twin engine outboard & sterndrive installations became more prevelant in the late 60's, early 70's, on production boats, the slang "toe" came into use when refering to gearcase alignment when adjusting the tie-bar. The commonly used alignment adjustment of "toe-in", even by professionals in the boat business today, is quite often incorrect for most installations. This is because they don't understand the forces of hydrodynamics & torque, as they apply to a pair(or more than two) of drives.

In or Out will depend upon your prop rotation creating the torque in or out of the "toe" (bullet nose) you're trying to equalize to a near perfect dead ahead angle up at speed, otherwise you will have significantly increasing drag fomr the drives due to the hack angle. If props are spinning outward, you want a 1/8" - 1/4" toe out. If props are spinning inward, then just the opposite.