I never knew they had a 9.9 back then. I thought the 9.9 was a late 70's on "lake regulation" engine. Do you have pics of an early one?
You are likely correct. Guess it was a 9.5 we had.
I’m not sure on production dates, but we had 3 engines.
One was from the 20’s and was silver. The top had a pulley on top and you would have to wind a rope around it to start. It said “zephyr” on it and had a bipeller and no gears. Dad told me it was a V4. I had plans to redo it one day, but it perished in Sandy.
The second, I was told, was a 7.5. It was a 54-57 model. It had the metal hinged 2 piece cover that wrapped the entire engine. The starter was above the flywheel making the entire engine look tall. The exhaust exited above the prop.
The third was my favorite. It said “sportwin” on it. It must have been a 9.5. It had the newer style starter (came up under flywheel when pulled) and the one piece new style engine cover that came off the top of the engine. The exhaust exited above the prop.
I became a dock boy in 1979. The two choice we had were a 7.5 or 9.9 on the rentals. That’s probably where my confusion came from.
I believe the exhaust exited through the prop by then. I remember that sometime in the 80’s, Evinrude changed the advertised power rating to some type of alternate rating. All of a sudden, the 90hp became an “88” or something odd like that.
We had short shaft motors for duck hunting. We had a barnakin sneak box boat. I can’t believe my dad let my brother and I go out hunting back then with a 1/4” piece of marine plywood between us and death. I started when I was 12yo. Our motors were all painted in “duck boat drab”, so there were no decals that could be read on the engines.
I do remember there being a 15 and 20hp in 1980. My friend had a 70 on his boat. I recall them all being the same general design. They were twins, cross draft 2T with large humps on the slugs, and dual points and coils under the flywheel. When you would turn the accelerator, the ignition plate under the flywheel would rotate to advance the timing.
The design from the small to larger OMC motors really didn’t change. The basic design was the same on all of them, they were just larger.
