torque steer

[lloyds]

I did look through the engine forum for an answer but didn't find anything specific for my problem. I have twin 35 hondas. The steering effort to turn left is way too much, and with hands off the boat will immediately turn right. The tabs on the motor legs have been adjusted with additional angle to the right but I am still not getting close to acceptable. Is there written somewhere an approximate angle or setting that would take this torgue steer out, or should I just keep going to the right. The tachs say the engines are running identical rpm, and I had another thought sunday while testing it, what if the props are not identically pitched, even though they are stamped the same. I tried running the starboard engine up a couple hundred rpm and it really helped. The former owner did make a comment after I bought it that one of the engines was good for coho and one was better for king. Which has to mean one gives a different trolling speed than the other. Anyone have any other ideas of what to try or look at?

[rjmcnabb]

Hi Sue'C,
Two questions:
a) are your engines truly parallel, or at least working in the same direction?
ii) do you have engine trim gauges, and do the engines really trim identically?
3) which engine steers best/easiest when you run only one at a time?
These might contribute their share of your problems.
Rod

[lloyds]

The engines have 1/2 " of toe in, the trim guages indicate the same and the engines respond the same with the same sound when I over trim at the same point on the guage but I will check that. I have not tried to determine which engine turns the best when the other is not being used. I can try it but don't know if it will teach me anything because of the torque on either side of centerline. In all this experimenting I did trim one engine out of the water and attempt to plane with the other. It apparently did plane as I was able to attain about 5200 rpm at about 17 mph, so I assume I was on plane. But you could tell the engine was struggling a bit.

[Chester]

First thing, consider swapping the props side to side. If that makes no difference possibly swap tachometers.
I'm away from the boat so I'm guessing our trim tabs are about twenty degrees off centerline.

[Chester]

First thing, consider swapping the props side to side. If that makes no difference possibly swap tachometers.
I'm away from the boat so I'm guessing our trim tabs are about twenty degrees off centerline.

[lloyds]

I will swap the props from side to side. Don't even want to touch the tachometers as everything is working well in that area and I can tell by the harmonics that the rpm's are pretty close.

[journey on]

A side question. When Judy bought Journey On, they installed a counter-rotating (left hand) engine. Don't ask, it happened, and works as well as a right hand engine.

However, myu understanding is that LH engines were used when there were twin engines on the boat. This was intended to reduce engine torque steer. From the above discussion I assume this isn't true.

So, from those who have twin engines, how many, if any, have counter-rotating engines? I do know the propellers aren't interchangeable.

I'm also curious why twin engines on a 16' boat? If they're both RH, doesn't the boat want to torque steer? And, no I don't know which way.

Boris

[Wandering Sagebrush]

[thataway]

To answer Boris' question--some of the Tom Cats have counter rotating, and some don't. The ones I sea trialed with counter rotating performed better (in my opinion). On cats the counter rotating are reversed from those on the monohull. This gives an inward prop wash and more stern lift--which is desirable in cats.

Certainly with inboards, almost always counter rotating engines, or transmissions are installed. For example almost all of the twin engine grand banks, have right handed engines, but the port transmission is left handed rotation. Thus the gear ratio is different--and a different pitch porp is used on the port side, than on the stb side. RPM's remain very close--because the prop pitch accounts for the difference in the tranny.

For some reason an earlier post seems to not have arrived on the site. I suggested looking at the type of steering--and gonig to a non feed back steering if it wss not already installed (can be mechanical or hydraulic).

The difference in speed making a difference in torque does suggest perhaps some difference in prop pitch. You can get props balanced to accuractly pitched with "prop scan"--this seems to be done more with inboards, than outboards, but might be worth doing here.

One question I would ask, is this a safety issue?

[DaveS]

[lloyds]

I have Morse standard steering on the 22'. It is a 1996 and I imagine that was standard in that era. NFB would be nicer but might not have let me know I have a problem. My wife is a ton smaller than me (figuratively speaking) so turning to the left is hard for her. I notice that after a couple hours it gets really tiring. At some point I may convert the steering but only after the torque problem is resolved. Right now the fin tabs are probably 20 degrees or a little more. I am going to the river tomorrow so tonight I will probably put on maybe 5 or 10 more degrees and see if that helps.

[Chester]

Does the boat list to one side or is it level while underway?
If one chine is immersed more than the other the boat will want to turn away from the deeper chine. If you are familiar with kayaks you know that this one way to turn them.

[lloyds]

When it is just me the starboard chine is deeper and it still wants to go to starboard. Actually, I thought it was the opposite, turns to the deep side.

[Larry H]

lloyds,

I had a 22 cruiser with a single 70hp with cable steering (not NFB).

When the engine was trimmed all the way in (down) the boat would pull to the right. As I trimmed the engine out (up), the pull-to-the-right would decrease.

I would experiment with trim; try from full in (down) to full out (up). Also try reducing the tow-in.

Torque steer is inherent in any outboard, try to find the best combination of trim fin angle, motor trim, and toe in to reduce the pull at the speed and trim angle required for your boat and running conditions.

[Chester]