HOLE SHOTS: Outboard manufacturers are tweaking their 4-stroke engines to give you the acceleration you Had in the good old days

摘要

Outboard owners call it a hole-shot. That pretty much translates to instant acceleration and getting your boat on a plane as quickly as possible. The carbureted 2-strokes were very good at near-instant power, but they also pumped far more pollutants into the atmosphere than was deemed healthy, and so a strong selling point of the 4-stroke outboard became its reputation as a more environmentally friendly engine. Along with the "green label," however, 4-stroke outboards have been burdened with being tagged as bigger, heavier and slower than 2-stroke out-boards. Thus it became a mission to eliminate the unfavorable connotations associated with the 4-stroke outboard. "The big problem with 4-strokes is that people perceive they are heavier and don't run," says Robin Senger, marketing manager for Honda Marine. After a lot of work, engine manufacturers will tell, the effort has paid off. "For every 4-stroke that we have come up with, the comparable 2-stroke has everything it can do to keep up with it," says Dave Greenwood senior product development engineer with Suzuki.