As you move up, the 4 strokers gain an upper hand.

In the .50 region though, the 2 stroker will do just as well when properly propped.

You do not have to worry about it "taking longer" to get up to speed, etc. The 2 strokers do just fine. You will NOT be racing with a Showtime that's for sure...


The "swinging a bigger prop" is a bit of old' marketing hype.

Take a 2 stroker of EQUAL displacement to a 4 stroker and you'll see that the 2 stroker calls for a larger prop than the four stroker or at worst varies very little... Ooops.

To offset the power differences, you have to go with a larger displacement on the four stroker to "swing that larger prop".

So you are not really comparing apples to apples.

As you move up from the .60 sizes however fuel consumption becomes a bigger and bigger issue, and the four stroker's eat fuel at a slower rate giving them a marked advantage.

Now all of that said, four strokers sure sound nice, and nowadays most of them are as reliable as 2 strokers.

What I said almost as reliable?

There was a time not too long ago that 4 strokers were looked down upon as less reliable.... it seems we are past that though as at least my experience with most 4 strokers has been very good.

I've seen Showtime .50's fly with both Saito's and 2C engines w/o problems.