One of my wildest projects involved the twin Drag 300's on my 22 Talon. The engines had been mounted on fixed brackets, but I remounted them on Stainless Marine hydraulic jackplates. That made the boat a lot faster, because I could bring it out of the holes with the engines down and then raise them at speed. The fixed brackets had to balance launch and speed, so the boat had to be trimmed way into to leave and trimmed up to go fast. But too much up trim can cause the bow to lift. The boat ran OK, but got to be a handfull at about 118. I added jackplates and the boat really got easier to drive and was solidly into the 130's. But, I wasn't happy with how much hardware there was between the various pieces of the jackplates, the engine mounting brackets and the engine tilt brackets. There was a just lot of useless aluminum and weight hanging back there. So, as crazy as I am, I looked at the whole mess and decided to integrate the jackplates into the mounting brackets. That would require a transom plates that had slots in it like the Jackplate so the engines could slide up and down and a pair of mounting brackets that included the tilt mechanism, so the tilt and trim could work. I got rid of 24 pounds per side and had far fewer pieces in the assembly when it was done. I made the tilt pieces first and assembled them on the motor to get the dimensions for the transom plate. That's why the tilt brackets are polished while the transom plate is still on the machine. The transom plate had to match the bracket mounting holes that were drilled at Talon, but you'll notice that there are no engine mount bolts at all.
Here are some shots of the parts being made and the completed installation:
Mercury Mounting improved
Linear Mode
