[Ed]

As many of you will recall, last winter I sold my twin Merc 250 EFIs and the Stainless Marine bracket and began preparing the transom for a repower. I honestly measured the transom for a new Armstrong bracket no less than 10 times. I know I drove my friends and the folks at Armstrong a bit crazy, but I know my boat better than anyone and realized I had one shot to get the bracket perfect. The original design presented had a tub that was too wide at 52 inches (bolts landed on foam filled stringers) The second variation had a tub that was 44 inches wide and would fit, but I was concerned about not enough displacement for heavier four strokes. The third and final variation was a tub that was 48 inches wide but also incorporated a 6 inch bolt flange inside (normal was 3 or 4 inch) that allowed us to move the tub bolts inside of the stringers and avoid any interference.

Next I plugged all holes with resin soaked hardwood dowels. Then ground down about 30 spots and applied several layers of 1708. Then I ground and faired until the cows came home. Next I rolled on four coats of gel coat. Then I sanded, sanded and wet sanded some more followed by several hours of buffing. The gel coat came out okay but definitely not up to my standards. Future project.

At this point, I was getting pressed for time (crazy summer in the marine industry) so I asked one of my dealers if they could take on the rest of the bracket installation and mount the twin 250 ist Honda’s.They jumped on it and had it back to me in just under a few weeks which was great!!

As you can see below the bracket fit perfectly. The greater displacement of the Armstrong wide body over the original Stainless Marine lifted the stern about two inches and the bow about an inch even with a 200lb total motor weight difference.

Attached are some pictures. I will post a video link too.

Top speed right now is 51mph at 6400 rpms with an occasional bounce off rev limiter using Honda/Solas 15.5x17 props. We need to try a pair of a Honda/Solas 15.25x18 props to get the rpms down a bit and pick up a couple of mph. I may also try my old Merc Mirage Plus 19 props.

The first thing I noticed was a big difference in noise followed by lack of a serious cloud of two stroke smoke! I did not take exact notes but I had about a 50 mile ride home and burned about 30 gallons of fuel so figure around 1.66 miles per gallon.