Steve I agree, your idea on data recording and then making the data public knowledge for all to see would stop any infractions with higher rpms, and would make top speeds and I assume acceleration public knowledge.
I guess my point I'm trying to make is that right now, nobody truly knows what is in any of the motors that are currently racing, or how much power they are truly producing,
My opinion is that we dyno all exhisting and future motors coming into the class and make that information public as well, I feel the powerplant that we use along with the hull are the foundations we all start with.
If these are common then we move on to step two, but without verifying what power we all truly have then the rest is all for nothing.
I'm pretty sure that a motor producing 650 hp will out perform and out
accelerate a motor producing 550 hp. While turning the exact same rpms.
If you can spin a larger wheel and be on the rev limiter you are going to go faster, it's pretty simple.
The fact is having a sealed motor right now means absolutly nothing to me. Seals can be purchased, manipulated, etc. So my solution is to verify all motors currently racing, by an independent source, mark them, seal them, and then we all start at zero with power, until a torque meter or some other device comes along that by your admission, probably isn't going to be provided, then the only solution is to dyno the motors to assure parity among all the boats as power.
Once that is done, then we work on maintaining how the power is applied at the prop, thru data loggers, gps that can track acceleration, etc.
As to ecms, I'm sorry, it is too easy to manipulate an ECM currently, and unfortunatly, as nice as someone seems, and how much you may respect them,and feel they can be trusted, infractions will happen if we are all allowed to choose what ECM we use without being closely monitored.
We are a great group of people, but without rules and enforcement I see no way that we can all race on a level playing field.
It is both time consuming and expensive to police our small class for the organizations, the simpler we can make that process for them, the better off we all are.