Mercury 1200 / 1025 push button

[BraceYourself]

Heard that Mercury is offering the 1200hp package that if you push switch on the dash it allows the engine to detune to 1025hp.

No changing pulleys and you can go to poker run and run race gas and for other times just push the button and run 89 octane.

Sounds awesome and I can't believe there hasn't been more publicity on this.

[MattBMiller]

Pretty good idea

[Sean H]

you actually have two ecu's, you have to unplug one and plug into the other.

[Trim'd Up]

Pretty cool. If it is only in the ECM it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to come up with a push button setup.

[Chris]

It's basically a limp-home mode. If you're running and can't find race gas to make it back. To switch down is easy- the 1025 will run on 89 octane mixed in. To go back to 1200, you have to drain the tanks and purge the fuel system. You don't have to get every drop, but you have to get them pretty much out of 89

[Sean H]

It's not really a limp home mode, it is the 1025 ecu that basically dumps even more boost due to the 1200 pulleys. You could run it that way every weekend if you wanted.

Guys have been switching ecu's on these engines for awhile now, its not that uncommon.

[Wobble]

Been doing the same thing with nitrous buttons for years

[Airpacker]

you actually have two ecu's, you have to unplug one and plug into the other.

Why would they need two controllers? Simple software is all thats necessary to have dual fuel and ignition maps. The memory space required to house dual maps would be way cheaper to produce and utilize than the cost of a complete second ECU.
The switch is nothing more than a way of communicating to the ECU which map is to be used.
No doubt, when the lower power setting is selected, the ECU will look real close at the knock sensors to make sure the owner didn't make a very costly mistake as well.

[Sean H]

The Mercury ecu has the ability to hold multiple maps, I don't know why they made it two ecu's, but that is the way it is. Like I said, Mercury is basically only offering from the factory what customers were already doing.

[Chris]

It's not really a limp home mode, it is the 1025 ecu that basically dumps even more boost due to the 1200 pulleys. You could run it that way every weekend if you wanted.

I know there are two ECU's.

The point being that switch over back to 1200 is not an easy or inexpensive process. And done inproperly can result in serious damage. Thus it's not a flick-the-switch power change thing. Yes, you could run them all year with 89 octane and use race gas that once or twice at a run or something. But that guy is probabaly a 1075 customer anyway.

As far as dual ECU, Kevin Skiba from Merc Racing explained to me that the cost to re-engineer a completely different ECU wasn't warranted by the small volume they expected from the units. He also said that making it a flip-of-the-switch might lead someone to take the other elements of the change-over lightly and run in 1200 mode without a proper fuel changeover.

[Davidmnc]

I know there are two ECU's.

The point being that switch over back to 1200 is not an easy or inexpensive process. And done inproperly can result in serious damage. Thus it's not a flick-the-switch power change thing. Yes, you could run them all year with 89 octane and use race gas that once or twice at a run or something. But that guy is probabaly a 1075 customer anyway.

As far as dual ECU, Kevin Skiba from Merc Racing explained to me that the cost to re-engineer a completely different ECU wasn't warranted by the small volume they expected from the units. He also said that making it a flip-of-the-switch might lead someone to take the other elements of the change-over lightly and run in 1200 mode without a proper fuel changeover.

What about having separate fuel tanks. One for 89 octane and one for racing fuel? Would that work?

[Sean H]

I know there are two ECU's.

The point being that switch over back to 1200 is not an easy or inexpensive process. And done inproperly can result in serious damage. Thus it's not a flick-the-switch power change thing. Yes, you could run them all year with 89 octane and use race gas that once or twice at a run or something. But that guy is probabaly a 1075 customer anyway.

As far as dual ECU, Kevin Skiba from Merc Racing explained to me that the cost to re-engineer a completely different ECU wasn't warranted by the small volume they expected from the units. He also said that making it a flip-of-the-switch might lead someone to take the other elements of the change-over lightly and run in 1200 mode without a proper fuel changeover.

You are right, Merc did 2 ecu's because it was cheaper. They already had those parts and flashes done.

As far as expensive, it takes a few minutes to hook up a hose and pump out the tanks using the Merc fuel pump. Done it several times.

There are Mercs running around with multiple flashes on the same ecu.

[Chris]

It would conceivably, but now you're carrying around all that weight and the space is an issue. There's only so many places to stick tanks on these things and 1200's gobble up the fuel. Getting 250 gallons onto an MTI 44 isn't easy. Getting space for 500 would probably be impossible. It would certainly be impossible to maintain good balance and weight distribution.

[Chris]

.

As far as expensive, it takes a few minutes to hook up a hose and pump out the tanks using the Merc fuel pump. Done it several times.

My comment was assuming you're paying someone to do this for you. Most people with 1200's in million-dollar boats are not doing their own stuff. It sounds easy, but fooling around with fuel and pumps and barrels and scratching $80K paint jobs and hauling fuel barrels and storage is probably outside what most of these owners have in mind. Hell, I don't even like putting fuel in my own vehicles- and smelling like it for the afternoon.

I don't know about pulling the tanks down with the in-tank pickups. None really reach the bottom and some are leaving a fair amount of fuel in the tank. Would you take that chance with $300K worth of motors?

[Sean H]

The merc pumps arent in tank, they are external, I guess you would have to know where your pickup is at. In the race boat, the tank is dry when the pump runs out, of course we have a huge sump in the tank for that very reason.

Either way, yes, if you are paying somebody it would cost money. But what does a tank of 89 cost vs a tank of race fuel? If you bought these computers to save money, I would assume you may be the type of guy to unplug your own harness and fuel lines.

I would also think most swaps would happen when the tank was low or out. That would be the obvious time to do it. I would also like to see how often this option actually gets used.

The guys that do this now with 850/1025/1075/1200/1400 setups do it quite often, the harness actually starts to break since they aren't made to be unclipped that many times.

[WFORob]

Aren't there sensors that are available that can determine octane (rather than pre-detonation)?

If so, rig one or two (for redundancy) of those into the fuel intake line, feed the data back to the ECU and have it adjust the mapping in real time. That'd be the slickest and most foolproof way of accomplishing something like this.

[BraceYourself]

A good source said its a push button system now.

If it were me... I'd top off with race gas at the begining of the season (run 3 weekends), get low and flip the switch and put in 92 (run 3 weekends) then pull boat out, have valve lash oil changes etc. done, clean fuel system and restart the cycle.

Just be a part of the 6 week maintanence cycle.

[VetteLT193]

I don't think there is such a thing as an octane sensor. Although, using a decent computer system and closely monitoring the spark knock you could do it real time in theory. these engines are so maxed out though I am not too sure it can be caught fast enough. one bad fire and things go boom.

[LEOPAJM]

This wouldn't be a bad idea on the 1075 that reqs. 91 octane either ..... Limp home feature ect ..... lots of areas up around here only sell 89 .

[old377guy]

It's basically a limp-home mode. If you're running and can't find race gas to make it back. To switch down is easy- the 1025 will run on 89 octane mixed in. To go back to 1200, you have to drain the tanks and purge the fuel system. You don't have to get every drop, but you have to get them pretty much out of 89

I'd like to limp anywhere with 1025 HP a side