How many people here would buy a surface drive that had the ability to switch to a low gear for thick mud/weeds, and switch to a high gear with speeds in the upper 30's/lower 40's for the long runs from the launch? And reverse of course?

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It has crossed my mind to try and retrofit an aircooled motorcycle motor with trans...

This sounds like the start of an infomercial...is Ron Popeil is going to corner the mud motor market with his new Showtime Rotisserie gatortail?

What would be the power head?

I don't really need to get through anything worse than what these motors are currently capable of.

Imagine playing the prop game with varying gear ratios!

All you need is tandem gears and belts in the belt housing and the mechanism to switch from one to the other.

And variable pitch props

How about ~ 100hp mud motor, standard forward, neutral, revers, no hi/low would be needed with that power.

Is there a market for something that powerful? Air cooled V-twin 45 degree V-twin specifically built for this type of application.

Think about it, in order to have a high gear, or basically overdrive, you need some nuts under the hood. GTR's and MB's basically do this now with the pulleys. But if you go too radical on the ratio, you don't have enough motor to turn it over. You basically need a snow mobile transmission, like a CVT belt system like on my Teryx. Low and high.

You guys are complicating this way too much. Think of it as changing the gear ratios on your GT or MB. Some are geared for more top end, and some for more low end. The gears today are a compromise of both, you would simply have the advantage of being at both ends of that spectrum.

You still need the power behind the tall gearing to achieve the speeds in you OP.
I could see a "granny" gear being useful in the think stuff

What about Gear Boxes would that work? I have a PD with a few adapter plates this should work. You can get a gear box that is 7:1. Any thoughts?

You will run into problems trying to prop it.

If it worked I'm sure all of the major outboard manufacturers would have something. They don't so I wouldn't waste any money or time trying it.

The real deal would be to come up with a variable pitch prop. I'm sure it'd only be a few hundred grand for the R&D for that.

They have very few options when it comes to props at the moment. It's been about 10 years that MM have been out. The props are the next weakest link just behind the Briggs engine.

I have an idea for a variable prop. I a going to have it tried with an old prop first.
The problem I see is that a variable anything isnt going to take impacts very well.

Why do u need 2 gears? My motor doesn't big down in the thick stuff and I can turn it right near the limiter in open water.
A lower gear would not push enough to get me out,
I wouldn't b able to turn a higher gear than I have now and still b at optimum rpm.

There may b some stock motors wishing for a lower gear at times, but it is much simpler to mod the motor than add a gear case. There would be no higher gear than the one u have now because you couldn't spin the prop. U could have a lower gear, but that will only be useful to people with stock/underpowered engines.

I know of one boat that had a 2 speed transmission. It was a diesel powered cat. The diesels couldn't push the big boat up on plane because they couldn't spool up due to the design. The 2 speed allowed for a low gear that let the engines spool up and almost plane, hit the button to shift and off she went.
The props were not changed and the final ratio was as originally designed. Very expensive fix.

^^^ this just reminded me of something.
When I was a kid, my uncle had a problem with impulse puchases.

He once bought a homemade deckboat with Nd old chrysler motor amd manual 3 speed trans. It had the pedals for throttle and clutch.
I remember vaguely that when we had the whole family on it, he actually had to use 2nd then 3rd to get on plane.

It was a complete hunk of junk, but it worked...

If you haven't seen a transmission with gears on an outboard application yet then I'm sure there are some incredible engineering hurdles to deal with. If Mercury/Evinrude/Yamaha haven't figured it out for the bass guys, then mudmotor owners are going to be shit out of luck.

T Gunn I said that several post back and got scolded..lol

I tried a CVT on the Kubota diesel powered surface drive. It would shift with no load on the prop but I wasn't smart enough to make it shift in the water. Anyone want to buy a TEAM clutch with less than 2 hours on it? You can check it out on this blog.
https://godevilalaska.wordpress.com/

They actually had outboards way back I the day with a foot that turned for reverse. So I heard anyways. If this is true they just brought back some old technology and improved it.

That outboard and its frail lower unit wouldn't take a stump nor the mud like an air cooled engine - no comparison