The Evinrude Legacy

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jimh
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The Evinrude Legacy

Postby jimh » Sun Jun 19, 2022 10:57 am

In a "Analysts & Investors Day 2022" gathering held in Orlando, Florida on June 14 and 15, 2022, Bombardier Recreational Products revealed further plans for manufacture of outboard engines. The presentation announced that BRP will be introducing a new outboard engine under the ROTAX branding and using the "Ghost" concept. The Ghost Project has been mentioned for many years, and while not yet completely revealed, the product will be a very low-profile outboard engine that is well integrated to the boat hull. It won't be an outboard engine designed to be dropped onto a conventional hull with a notched transom, but rather it appears to be a propulsion assembly that will likely be bolted on to the transom.

In a graphic showing global manufacturing facilities, a callout arrow pointing to Sturtevant, Wisconsin indicated the product to be made there was "pontoon boats."

The investor presentation also seem to hint that more about the ROTAX Ghost outboard will be revealed in August 2022.

As might be expected, the forward-looking statements were all very optimistic. In the Marine Segment, plans call for revenue to double to $1-billion. There was also emphasis on growth in marketing to younger customers and to a more diverse customer base.

The graphic elements of the presentation are available for all to see.

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Phil T
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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby Phil T » Sun Jun 19, 2022 11:40 am

I do not have high expectations on this offering. Maybe they are trying to wring some sales revenue to ofset all the R&D money spent.

Personally I think they would have done better if they had continued producing E-TEC gen 1 engines. With all the pent up demand there would have been brisk sales.
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Don SSDD
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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby Don SSDD » Mon Jun 20, 2022 5:27 am

It will be interesting to see what their product will be, it may be attractive to younger people like the colourful pontoon boats they are selling. Maybe you will be able to operate the boat from your iPhone, self driving like a Tesla , via GPS. Innovative like the fixed head Mercury outboard?

More technology. I fondly remember the KISS system.
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Masbama
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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby Masbama » Mon Jun 20, 2022 3:22 pm

I found the Marine Update and Opportunities section beginning with slide 88 to contain interesting information; specifically slide 90 which details how Project Ghost addresses marine engine drawbacks. The drawing on slide 91 shows the engine on the bottom of the hull.

How does that address a boater's desire for easy trimming as stated in slide 90?

dtmackey
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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby dtmackey » Tue Jun 21, 2022 9:30 am

As a saltwater boater, I cringe at the thought of a GHOST outboard propulsion device that stays tilted down and in the saltwater while stored on the mooring or boat slip.

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dtmackey
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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby dtmackey » Wed Jun 22, 2022 1:54 pm

For those of you interested in an actual pic of the Evinrude Ghost motor. I'm guessing this is a 2 stroke with the saddlebag style oil tank.

Image


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Jefecinco
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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby Jefecinco » Wed Jun 22, 2022 2:53 pm

That photo qualifies as ghostly.
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jimh
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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby jimh » Wed Jun 22, 2022 3:24 pm

ROTAX makes four-stroke engines, too, not just two-stroke engines.

Perhaps the goal for BRP with the Ghost project was to move to four-stroke-power-cycle designs, which would explain the ending of the Evinrude brand, which had a 100-year history of making two-stroke-power-cycle engines.

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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby dtmackey » Wed Jun 22, 2022 3:46 pm

jimh wrote:Perhaps the goal for BRP with the Ghost project was to move to four-stroke-power-cycle designs, which would explain the ending of the Evinrude brand, which had a 100-year history of making two-stroke-power-cycle engines.
A four-stroke-power-cycle engine would make more sense with the market demand for four-stroke engines that has shunned two-stroke engines.

The plastic reservoir is what has me scratching my head. It would be easy to assume it's for oil injection, but if it's a fouir-stroke-power-cycle engine the only thing I could think of would be a coolant reservoir, which would mean it has a heat exchanger somewhere, since a raw-water-cooled engine doesn't have a coolant reservoir or expansion tank.

On Wave-Runner [PWC] boats, a heat exchanger is used for cooling. The heat exchanger is mounted to the ride plate on the bottom of the jet pump. and the cooling system is a closed-loop.

The illustration (above) is of poor resolution, but is almost appears that there is an exhaust loop or elbow wrapped in heat reflective foil insulation. I see two hose inlets, and I speculate those are for water injection to keep temperatures s under the hood (or cowl) at a safe level.

I will have to wait until GHOST is launched to see how my guesses match the real design.

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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby jimh » Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:16 pm

ROTAX was acquired by Bombardier in 1970. Bombardier acquired Evinrude in 2001 from the ashes of the OMC bankruptcy. On that basis, there is a lot more history with ROTAX than there was with Evinrude. Looking at these two subsidiary companies from the perspective of the senior acquiring company, ROTAX is an older partner than Evinrude by 31-years.

In 2003 when Bombardier was separating their recreational products from their aviation and railroad products, ROTAX and Evinrude went to Bombardier Recreational Products. At that time Evinrude had been part of their business for only two years, while ROTAX had been a subsidiary for 33-years. This is just a guess, but perhaps in senior BRP management there was a soft spot in their heart for ROTAX and a more bottom-line approach to Evinrude.

I don't recall any Evinrude four-stroke-power-cycle engines, although I think there is some ancient history of very small 5-HP engines in the OMC legacy--but never any four-stroke-power-cycle engines that could push a pontoon boat or a specialized bass boat to planing speeds.

For BRP to now try to promote two-stroke-power-cycle engines AND a completely new propulsion system never seen before as their innovative and market leading product seems to me to be quite fanciful. About the only opening that might exist has been created by the enormous new sales volume for outboard engines that has resulted in very long delivery times for new engines to customers. Some customers might be willing to take a risk on a completely new product to avoid a long wait.

dtmackey
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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby dtmackey » Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:24 pm

jimh wrote:ROTAX was acquired by Bombardier in 1970. Bombardier acquired Evinrude in 2001 from the ashes of the OMC bankruptcy. On that basis, there is a lot more history with ROTAX than there was with Evinrude. Looking at these two subsidiary companies from the perspective of the senior acquiring company, ROTAX is an older partner than Evinrude by 31-years.
Having played with Rotax motors since the mid 1980s in CanAm dirt bikes (back when they made bikes) and also SkiDoo snowmobile, I can attest they make a great product.

Even with the failure of Evinrude, I believe that the Evinrude acquisition was still a good move by BRP. They used E-TEC technology and launched the first direct injected snowmobiles which has dominated sales in the snowmobile market. E-TEC powered snowmobiles outsell the competition, and the E-TEC engines start and idle smoothly, no matter how cold the temperature. SkiDoo already dominates the snowmobile market and has further increased their market share with the E-TEC technology.

What I find interesting is on the G2 Evinrude 300, where we started to see Rotax technology engineered into an Evinrude outboard with the RAVE valve--an adjustable exhaust port. They have been using this in Rotax motors since the c.1985.

Someone on onwww.seadooforum.com once wrote:The RAVE, (Rotax Adjustable Variable Exhaust) valves are located above the exhaust valve. There are 2 of them per engine. They are round with a red adjustment screw in the middle. It has a clip that holds it together. How they work is that they open the exhaust port larger as the engine rpm's increase. When the rpm's drop down so do the RAVE valves. They work on the principle of the pressure of the exhaust system. Rpm's increase, pressure increases and the valve opens, rpm's drop pressure drops, Valve closes. They should be de-carbonized annually. What they do, in short, is modify the size of the exhaust port to boost responsiveness and power at the low-and mid-rpm ranges.

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Re: The Evinrude Legacy

Postby jimh » Sat Jul 09, 2022 7:46 am

The presentation slides (which are linked above in the initial article in this discussion) mention that there will be a "Global Reveal" in August 2022. In Slide 91 of the presentation the silhouette of the GHOST engine is shown, and it is also identified as an "outboard engine."

Slide91.jpg
Fig. 1. A slide from the presentation to investors, from page 91 of the PDF file.
Slide91.jpg (79.98 KiB) Viewed 2424 times


The following slide (92) indicates that the biggest expected impact on BRP revenue will come from use of the Ghost engine with the Manitou boats, as a graphic title says "Path to $1B of Marine revenues: Largely driven by Manitou."

The Manitou boats are aluminum pontoon boats. A pontoon boat is seen as a step up from a SKI-DOO or a SKI-DOO SWITCH (another new BRP product). Pontoon boats are extremely popular for lake boating in relatively protected waters. They typically have excellent stability and are used like floating entertainment patios. There seems to be more of them on the water now than ever.