After 2 seasons of using a 20+ year old 8 horse 2-stroke I broke down and bought a brand new outboard. I chose a 9.9 HP Honda 4-stroke with electric start and 12 amp alternator.
Even though I knew it would fit in my lazarette/outboard well (I measured), it wouldn't fit through the hatch to get there. So it made this into a project. After considering several options, including enlarging the opening and making a new hatch, I decided to do some surgery and make the removed piece of boat into a quickly and mechanically replace part. This would mean I had a huge access, I didn't have to build up a new boss around the enlarged opening and make a new hatch.
The following 2 pictures show the opening with the piece cut out, and with it secured back in place mechanically.


Next I purchased the shift/throttle controls from Edson the match my pedestal. Installing the cables was tedious, but well worth the effort.


I figured there was no reason to expose the ignition to the elements, so I mounted it from the bottom of the deck in the lazarette, easily accessible from the helm seat.


One of the problems with an outboard well is water coming in and sloshing about the lazarette when approaching hull speed. To cut down on this I built an insert the goes around the outboard shaft and fills in most of the rest of the opening in the hull. I still need to tweek this, but it helps a lot already.


One of the problems with buying the remote controls version, vs the tiller one is that the steering pivot has no friction adjustment. They figure you will be using a steering system as well. Well, my steering is my rudder, I want my engine to stay facing forward. So I took the steering bar included, attached it to a turnbuckle and fastened it off on the bulkhead in the lazarette. This way I could adjust the position then just leave it locked there.

It isn't an inboard, but it works like one. And if it needs any major work, I can just bring it into the shop and work on it standing up. As most of you know, working on anything boat related while standing up is a rare treat!