BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

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jimh
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BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Mon Aug 08, 2022 9:03 am

In a Press Release on August 7, 2022, Bombardier Recreational Products finally dropped the other shoe on its sudden and unexpected cessation of manufacture of Evinrude outboard engines two years ago in 2020. BRP has re-introduced itself to the outboard engine market with what it is calling the "all-new Rotax Outboard Engine with Stealth Technology."

The "stealth" component is the form factor of the outboard engine: it disappears under the boat. In its press release BRP refers to their new product with a variety of adjectives: disruptive; seamless; holistic, daring, innovative, integrated, distinctive, contemporary, and a new height of design. Wow--that is a lot to live up to.

BRP further states they have "completely rethought, reimagined, and redesigned" the outboard engine. The new Rotax Outboard Engine with Stealth Technology will provide all the usual benefits of the outboard engine--price, performance, handling, ease of maintenance, and full trim--with the addition of being hidden, being quiet, and being efficient.

The press release provides three pictures of the Rotax Outboard Engine. But the engine is so stealthy that you cannot see the engine at all in any of the pictures. I guess that is proof of how stealthy the engine really is.

rotaxOutboard.jpg
Fig. 1. Can you find the new Rotax Outboard Engine is this promotional picture from BRP? The view of the boat seems to have been incredibly poorly chosen as a means of showing the engine product that was the subject of the press release in which this image was provided.
rotaxOutboard.jpg (119.54 KiB) Viewed 5029 times


At the moment there are only two versions of the Rotax Outboard Engine: 115-HP and 150-HP. The engines are apparently available only as a package with a new boat from one of three BRP house brands: Manitou, Alumacraft, and Quintrex. If you are not familiar with Quintrex, it is an aluminum boat made in Australia.

BRP is equally unreserved in its use of adjective for the combination of the Rotax Outboard Engine with its three boat brands; the boats will offer "unrivaled" experiences, at "incredible values", and will be "irresistible" to consumer.

I guess there is nothing better than optimism when you launch a new product.

Discarding the Evinrude brand name, which, by the way, made the FIRST outboard engine, in favor of Rotax, a brand name with practically zero name recognition in the realm of boating and outboard engines, seems like very strange marketing. It's like FORD changing its brand to be CARJAX or something similarly odd.

The press release concludes with the usual caution to readers that it contains "forward-looking statements" that are not historical facts. Yes, I think that is for certain.

None of this is a big surprise. Earlier BRP gave very clear signals that it was already well along the way on this path. Compare at my previous article on this topic at

Evinrude Legacy
https://continuouswave.com/forum/viewto ... f=4&t=7249

What is not made clear is the engine technology: will it be two-stroke-power-cycle or four-stroke-power-cycle? This apparently also will be kept hidden from view.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby RLSmith » Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:02 pm

Thanks for posting that interesting announcement. If I were an engineer who contributed to the design, I would be disappointed that press release does not even show the product.

The Manitou web site has a few interesting pictures and text blurbs about this "outboard."
https://www.manitoupontoonboats.com/us/en/discover-manitou/advantages/rotax.html

One blurb states "requires no oil changes," one picture shows an oil fill "integrated into the boat," and another blurb states "no dealer scheduled maintenance required for the first 5 years or 500 hours."

The engine appears half-way submerged. The cross-section view shows what might be the air intake at the top front of the cowling. That is not very high above the water compared to a traditional outboard.

I wonder how high the "outboard" can be tilted up on the Manitou boat pictured with the "MAX Deck platform" above the "outboard."

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:36 pm

Thanks for the link to the Manitou boat website. I believe that TODAY is the big REVEAL day, and information is finally being revealed, although perhaps not in unison by all the related websites.

From the comments at the Manitou boat website, it is now very clear that the Evinrude name is completely dead, and apparently intentionally, as perhaps there was too much baggage associated with it.

The new engine branding as BRP ROTAX is underway, and although it will be a new name to boaters, BRP brags that ROTAX engines are "known as industry-leading power plants with strong, responsive power delivery, leading fuel and oil economy, and an indisputable reputation for reliability. That emphasis is my own, but I think reliability is a critical factor in engine buying choice these days. Buyers today expect engines to run flawlessly, to require very little special attention, and to have very long service life.

What may stand in the way of the ROTAX Outboard Engine achieving those distinctions seems to be the very nature of the design: half the power head is located below the waterline of the engine housing. Whatever is working to keep the water out of the engine housing had better be extraordinarily well designed and manufactured. Any water ingress into the engine compartment is going to cause a big problem.

ROTAX_threeCylinder.jpg
Fig. 2. Cross-section view of a three-cylinder ROTAX Outboard Engine.
ROTAX_threeCylinder.jpg (77.03 KiB) Viewed 4993 times


The detail in Figure 2 is not quite a sharp as you might like, but I do see what may be three sets of dual RAVE valves, a set for each cylinder. These RAVE valves have been used on ROTAX engines to enhance the tuning at high engine speeds to produce more power output. Some very small ROTAX engines used on SKI-DOO snow sleds have been able to produce very high horsepower from very modest displacement.

There is one curious element in the design: the engine crankshaft is now horizontal. It drives a 90-degree gear set to send power vertically down to the gear case, where another 90-degree gear set changes the direction back to horizontal and to the propeller shaft. There is alway some loss of power associated with transmitting power through a gear set, so instead of just one in a conventional outboard engine, the ROTAX will have two big gear sets.

What is not clearly seen in Figure 2 is how the engine crankshaft horizontal output is turned to vertical to become the drive shaft down to the gear case. If anyone seems something interesting there, please elaborate.

Another section illustrates the "Rigging Center" for the engine, with an oil fill. But there are "no oil changes." The inference here is the engine must be consuming oil and burning it off, or in other words, the engine is a two-stroke-power-cycle engine, but that is never mentioned explicitly.

The last version of the Evinrude E-TEC engine was a three-cylinder engine. The ROTAX is also a three-cylinder engine. The E-TEC has automatic one-touch winterization; The ROTAX has that same feature. The E-TEC engine was direct-injection. The ROTAX engine is also direct-injection. The E-TEC was available in 115-HP and 150-HP models. The ROTAX is offered in those same power levels.

There is a reasonable inference that the last implementation of the E-TEC engine, the G2 three-cylinder model, is very likely the basis for the ROTAX engine.

ASIDE: I have to laugh that the MANITOU website talks about the convenient of a National Electrical Manufacturers Association or NEMA connection available at the rigging center. I am quite certain that connection is probably a NMEA or National Marine Electronic Association. The guy who built the boat website probably was not quite keyed in on NMEA v. NEMA.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:49 pm

RLSmith wrote:The cross-section view shows what might be the air intake at the top front of the cowling
Yes, I agree that must be the air intake. It reminds me of a snorkel intake on some ATV that are intended to be able to run across rivers and streams while partially submerged, or to a submarine running on the surface with a diesel engine.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby floater » Tue Aug 09, 2022 6:55 am

I'm curious how this new engine would work as a re-power? It must come in several version lengths for those with short to extra long transoms.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby Phil T » Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:45 am

And I thought Mercury was silly for going with steering by moving the lower unit.
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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Tue Aug 09, 2022 2:19 pm

Phil T wrote:And I thought Mercury was silly for going with steering by moving the lower unit.
I think you allude to the Mercury V12 VERADO. For those giant V12 engines, Mercury decided to steer them by rotating the lower unit so the engines would be able to be mounted a reasonable distance apart on a transom. If those giant engines turned like conventional engines, they would need wider mounting centers. The even crazier thing about 600-HP outboard engines is they seem to always be rigged at least in twins, and often in quads.

But it is funny you mention steering, because I am wondering if the BRP ROTAX Outboard Engine has incorporated the steering mechanism into the engine mounting, as it did on the E-TEC G2. In the cross-section image it looks like there is some sort of a gear in the engine mounting area, and that may be integral steering.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:32 am

I found a much higher-resolution version of the ROTAX Outboard Engine in the cutaway view. This very large image show the engine in great detail:

https://continuouswave.com/whaler/reference/BRP/Rotax-Engine-Cutaway.jpg

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby Phil T » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:40 am

I don't want to know how to change the water pump impeller.
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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:08 pm

Phil T wrote:I don't want to know how to change the water pump impeller.
Every five years you let the dealer change it. That is the new-era of boating and boaters.

Actually, I have the dealer change the water pump impeller on my conventional E-TEC outboard engine. The Magnum gear case is much too heavy for my old back, once I would have the gear case off the midsection I have nowhere to work on it easily and now way to support it properly, and there are a lot of details to get right in order to perform that service.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:15 pm

On the Alumacraft website there is a mention that some models are available with conventional outboard engine or the ROTAX Outboard Engine. This sets up an interesting problem for the selling dealer.

The BRP boat brands have an agreement with Brunswick to pre-rig Mercury outboards. So a boat dealer would assumed to be familiar with Mercury outboards. If the salesman sells a boat with the ROTAX engine, now the dealer needs to be familiar with the ROTAX engine, too. Of course, at this moment, there is no dealer service shop familiar with the ROTAX Outboard Engine.

To see how the boat dealers influence customers about which engine option to chose will be interesting to watch in 2023 when the ROTAX engine becomes available to customers.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby GoldenDaze » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:56 pm

As an engineer I'm always up for a new bit of technology, but I don't know that my first thought would be, "hey let's place half the powerhead below the static waterline!"
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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Thu Aug 11, 2022 9:59 am

Below is a promotional photograph that gives a much better view of the ROTAX Outboard Engine in operation. You can get a better feel for the relative size and the amount of immersion of the engine from this image than could be gotten from prior views provided by BRP in their press release; those images seemed intent on hiding the engine from view.

ROTAX_OutboardEngineView.jpg
Fig. 3. The new BRP ROTAX Outboard Engine on an Alumacraft boat.
ROTAX_OutboardEngineView.jpg (164.91 KiB) Viewed 4540 times


As can be seen above, the powerhead is running well above the waterline when this boat is on plane. That is quite a contrast to the other views of the powerhead when the boat is at rest and it looks like it is submerged about halfway up the cowling.

This makes sense: if a major portion of the engine cowling remained submerged when the boat was on plane, it would add enormous drag and significantly reduce performance.

I think we have to give the engineers and designers some credit: they have created a new style for outboards, and it is different from the old style.

Looking at BRP and their resources, they had a very modern engine manufacturing plant in Sturtevant, Wisconsin, that was making a huge product line of Evinrude outboard engines. Then about a month into the global pandemic they decided to shut down all outboard engine manufacturing. After they did that, what exactly were they going to do with that plant in Sturtevant? Turn it into a pontoon boat production line? They must have had the ROTAX Outboard Engine almost ready to go at that point. They probably figured, "Why keep losing market share trying to sell E-TEC engines, let's just shut down the plant, and get it ready to make something new."

The making-something-new part appears to have taken about three years, as the ROTAX Outboard Engine won't be in full production until 2023. But BRP seems to have a lot of hubris. The language of their press release demonstrates that. Yeah, this new engine is a bit wacky, but that is what people said when Mercury put a supercharger on an outboard engine they would sell mostly to saltwater boaters.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby Jefecinco » Thu Aug 11, 2022 10:48 am

Boat builders, pontoon boat builders aside, would have to do significant redesigns to use the engine. Consider the problem of a deep "V" boat builder making the ROTEX fit. Perhaps if longer shaft arrangements become available they will be useful. One advantage is the very large casting platform almost required for the stealth feature.

A recent post on another site says the Ghost intake connects to an airbox inside the boat.
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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Sun Aug 14, 2022 9:52 am

There is one element of the ROTAX Outboard Engine that has not yet been mentioned: if you buy a BRP-branded boat with the ROTAX engine, there won't be any option for re-powering it with another outboard engine brand. The design of the ROTAX guarantees that the boat owner will only have one choice for a re-power: another ROTAX.

This feature was not mentioned in the BRP press release, but I would not be surprised to learn that this feature was discussed when the Ghost concept was being initially planned.

The only possible avenue for sales of the ROTAX Outboard Engine will be to buyers who are completely new to boating, and who don't know anything about outboard engines and boats. The people who are buying pontoon boats are often coming to boating as a new adventure. The pontoon boat will be their first boat. They won't be aware of the history of the outboard engine and how radically different the ROTAX Outboard Engine is from all the others.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby frontier » Sun Aug 14, 2022 11:24 am

This sure looks familiar. Seems like years ago the old Force/Chrysler Outboard Company had a low-profile outboard designed in conjunction with Bayliner Boats. It didn't catch on with the boat buying public.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby Mambo Minnow » Sun Aug 14, 2022 1:07 pm

I noted that all the promotional pictures feature freshwater boats and environments. Given the level of submergence of the ROTAX design, it will be interesting to see what level of corrosion protection and warranty will be offered. It would give me pause to use this setup in saltwater, in the same manner I avoid purchasing an I/O configuration.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Sun Aug 14, 2022 3:15 pm

Do you remember the Mercury VAZER sterndrive?

In 2007—15-years ago—Mercury announced a new product: a 100-HP in-line four-cylinder four-stroke-power-cycle 1.6-liter engine which they touted for its extremely low vertical profile which would allow the engine to be mounted at the stern of smaller boats that might otherwise be powered by an outboard motor.

In case you have forgotten, here is a Mercury product presentation posted to youTube:

https://youtu.be/KyC6A3mduXM

I don’t know the exact date when the VAZER was dropped from the product line. I don’t know how many were sold. But I do know that VAZER had completely lapsed from my memory.

More at

https://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/005613.html

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby dtmackey » Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:48 am

Mambo Minnow wrote:I noted that all the promotional pictures feature freshwater boats and environments. Given the level of submergence of the ROTAX design, it will be interesting to see what level of corrosion protection and warranty will be offered. It would give me pause to use this setup in saltwater, in the same manner I avoid purchasing an I/O configuration.


You hit the nail on the head, corrosion nightmare if used in the salt water and tied to a dock or moored, The powerhead of this unit is at or below the waterline so was would sit in the motor at rest. That rules out lots of users.

I'm also wondering about impact resistance when someone hits a rock or log.....

I see a very small market for this motor/boat combination. Who wants to the the guinea pig for setup?

D-

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby Mike Brantley » Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:54 am

Saw a couple of noteworthy things mentioned in this August 10 article from Boating magazine at https://www.boatingmag.com/boats/brp-unveils-rotax-outboard-engine/.

"A 1.9-liter three-cylinder, two-stroke powerhead is shared by 115 hp and 150 hp versions of the Rotax outboard, with the 150 gaining RAVE variable exhaust ports. Both motors use the E-TEC direct fuel injection system and are equipped with power hydraulic steering."

Also...

"Rotax says the motor weighs just under 500 pounds. It mounts on a standard outboard transom and bolt holes, and has a 25-inch length."

The article also states that air enters the engine through a tube routed into the boat transom and that injector oil is carried in a 3.5-gallon reservoir within the boat.

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Re: BRP Announces the new ROTAX OUTBOARD ENGINE

Postby jimh » Tue Aug 16, 2022 10:07 am

MIKE--thanks for the cogent comments.

As far as I have read, I have not seen BRP mention in their promotional literature the term "two-stroke" or "two-cycle" or "two-stroke-power-cycle" as a descriptor for the ROTAX Outboard Engine, and now we have an independent reviewer point out the engine is a two-stroke-power-cycle design. My inference from BRP's apparent reticence to mention "two-stroke" is they prefer not to inform buyers about that feature.

Obscuring, perhaps intentionally, that the ROTAX Outboard Engine is using a two-stroke-power-cycle design is in complete conflict with the approach of Evinrude. When Evinrude was manufacturing two-stroke-power-cycle outboard engines, the made it abundantly clear they were doing that, and they proudly pointed to all the advantages of using that engine design. BRP now seems a bit shy about mentioning those words.