

The engine employs twin contra-rotating balancer shafts turning at twice the crankshaft speed to cancel out secondary unbalance forces.įor its fuel system, Honda adapted its automotive electronic PPG-FI, short for programmed fuel injection, to the engine, the first such application in an outboard four-stroke engine. The single overhead camshaft is driven by a single-stage cogged belt, and acts on four valves per cylinder via rockers with screw-type clearance adjustment. Both cylinder head and block are light alloy. It obtains a total displacement of 2254 cm 3 (137.5 in 3) with 86 mm (3.39 in.) bore and 97 mm (3.82 in.) stroke. The BF115/130A shares its basic architecture with the Accord unit. At the time of this writing, Suzuki is the only other manufacturer producing four-stroke, four-cylinder, 1298-cm 3 (79-in 3) marine engines of 45-52 kW (60-70 hp) ratings, which are also based on the company's automotive four-cylinder engine. The project was subsequently abandoned due to its high cost, especially the bent engine's unique crankshaft. Asaka-Higashi R&D had, in fact, tried a different and bolder approach to produce a high-power outboard, designing and evaluating a prototype four-stroke V4 engine. The strategy has been expanded further, and now includes the industry's most powerful four-stroke outboard-engine series, the BF115/130A, which uses the Accord's SOHC 2254-cm 3 (137.5-in 3) inline four. Then Honda adapted the Civic's SOHC 1590-cm 3 (97 in 3) inline four-cylinder engine in a quad-carbureted form, to an outboard application, designating it BF75A/90A.
#HONDA OUTBOARD SERIAL NUMBER MODEL YEAR SERIES#
The three-cylinder series is now offered in two displacement sizes: the BF40/50A with 808 cm 3 (49 in 3) and the BF25/30A scaled down to 499 cm 3 (30.4 in 3). The company's first multicylinder outboard engine was based on the liquid cooled, overhead camshaft, inline three-cylinder engine for light vehicles, with its displacement enlarged to 808 cm 3 (49 in 3)-from the light-vehicle's limit of 660 cm 3 (40 in 3). "Especially, tooling for a new, specific crankshaft." Honda's forte is the four-stroke engine, possessing myriad such engine types for automotive and power equipment applications. Why are competitors not taking the same four-stroke route en masse? "High cost of design, development, and manufacturing for the market volume," explained Yokoyama. Honda is proacting on the 2006 requirements, bringing its products up to those Draconian standards. Honda's 11 outboard-engine products meet the 1998 standards. EPA has since tightened its control over marine engine emissions (except diesel), reducing combined hydrocarbon and nitrous oxide emissions by 9.3% in 1998, and by 95% for 2006. "Pollution of lakes has become a major environmental issue already, as in the case of Bodensee in Switzerland, where two-stroke motors are now banned from access." "In this and following decades, environmental concerns should become more acute, including in the water," observed Akimitsu Yokoyama, then director of Honda Asaka-Higashi R&D, when he launched the company's first multicylinder outboard in 1990. its competitors' predominantly two-stroke lineups. Honda is unique among the world's outboard engine manufacturers in that, since its 1964 entry to the field, its products are all powered by four-stroke engines, vs. Honda hopes to up the ante with the addition of the most powerful type in its lineup, the BF115/130. With more models covering wider segments, the company's sales increased to 51,000 units, representing 7.8%, in fiscal 1996. Honda's share that year was a meager 5% (40,000). The market is led by the Big Three, America's Outboard Marine, Brunswick, and Japan's Yamaha, who among them have a lion's share (80%) of the market, 674,000 units of the total 789,000 sold in 1995. Honda is among the distant-second group of the world's outboard engine producers in terms of unit sales. The BF130A model delivers 97 kW (130 hp), uses a single-stageĬogged belt to drive the single overhead camshaft,Īnd has twin contra-rotating balancer shafts.
