Beaver Dam Mud Runners partnered with a Thailand longtail company that is also an engineering company.  We developed one of the toughest longtail kits on the market.

Air-cooled engines hardly ever break but any lawn mower mechanic can work on a horizontal engine. Everything attached to the engine is fairly simply made and parts are easy to replace and very inexpensive. Parts are a fraction of the cost of other mud motors. For example, our props start at $10 a piece.

Thailand companies having been making long tail motors since the 50's and distributing them all over the world. They are the most well known and effective design in the international market. Many episodes of River Monsters on A&E Animal Planet, show boats with Thai long tail motors. They are used through out the world in rivers, marshes and jungles. Long tails are the best for getting out of situations where you get stuck in some mud or weeds. Because of the longer shaft, long tails allow you to reach for pockets of water or soft mud to get you unstuck. Many people don't realize one of the most important features of a long tail. When a boat moves across water, it creates a wave that follows behind it. That wave is moving at the same speed of the boat. One of the reasons for the long shaft is to be able to use the energy created by that wave. By placing your prop in that wave, you get to take advantage of its power. It is much like going with the current downstream on a river or surfing a wave, it is the same concept. In a sense, you are recycling energy that you are creating. However, if you have a shorter shaft, you can't reach out far enough to take advantage of the wave. Most American companies only make shorter shafts for a long tail. They use large expensive engines to make up for their inefficient designs. It works well but it costs a lot more.

If you compare a long tail to an outboard, you will see an approximate improvement of fuel usage by approximately 50% according to a US government report by a Naval Engineer.

Reasons a Long Tail is more efficient than an outboard and other mud motors:

MORE EFFICIENT - No energy is lost to gears like an Outboard. A long tail is a direct drive and does not have any gears. Drive shaft power output is in a straight line so more horsepower reaches the propeller. Other long tails utilize a universal joint or belt to redirect power and use a shorter shaft. Redirecting power in another direction reduces power created by the engine. This reduction is very obvious in small engines.

LESS DRAG - A long tail is more efficient because it does not cause as much drag as an outboard. It is pushing the boat directly from the behind so the shaft does not create any draft like the shaft of an outboard does. Force is being applied directly to the back of the boat from a prop that is horizontal to the boat. It is surface penetrating and has less parts in the water than similar designs. The fewer parts in the water you have the less drag that is created. Our long tails have a longer shaft that allows for the prop to enter the water at an angle that allows for a more efficient, horizontal use of the power created by the prop and engine. If you push the shaft too deep and at too much of angle, you cause the force to push up instead of an efficient horizontal push from the back of the boat.

-The long tail is the only type of motor that can take advantage of the wave that is created by the boat. It is able to "recycle" this energy.

Why an Aluminum Prop?

When you have a spinning prop, you have to have a failure point to absorb the shock caused by hitting hard objects. If you use a very hard stainless steel prop, you increase your chances of bending your shaft. Our props are a fraction of the cost of a stainless prop. Our $10 prop would cost at least $150 if it were stainless. If I am in the middle of "no where" on a cold morning, I don't want to get stranded because I bent a shaft. Shafts are hard to replace, take a lot of time to replace, require multiple tools to replace and carrying a spare takes a up a lot of space. However, if I bend or brake one of our aluminum props, I can quickly replace it with a standard small crescent wrench or even pliers. All you do is undo the bolt that holds the aluminum prop to the shaft and simply put a new prop back on. It is a simple process that takes less than a minute to complete. This could save your life on a freezing morning in a river.

We also make a metal prop guard. I highly recommend it if you are running in a shallow lake with Cypress knobs or lots of wood on the bottom. It tends to catch weeds in it so you might consider taking it off if you don't have any hard objects to be concerned about.