Originally Posted by 36widebody

Gents, finally after 2000 plus hrs of a two year restoration, we put Kiekhafer Aeromarine III in the water some weeks ago to test it out mechanically. My apologies for not keeping you guys up on the status earlier!

For those of you who do not know the story, Kiekhafer Aeromarine III hull #9, was owned by K.Kiekhaefer raced by Bob Magoon, two time US champion, sold to England and raced as "I like it too" winner of 76 Cowes-Torway-Cowes, then as "Realite Charger" and finally two friends of mine from Norway bought it in 1984 wiith the intention of racing it.One took the hull, the other took the engines,drives etc but they never managed to get the boat in the water. Finally I managed to persuade them to sell a couple of years ago and a long restoration process began.

The hull was un-cut and only minor repair was needed to some of the wood reinforcements. Major work has been 5 layer of paint, carefully grinded off down to the original yellow and red gelcoat(topcoat).Then repainted with gelcoat, wet sanded and polished up again. All the interior equipment removed and the old Stewart Warner instrumentation reconditioned. New 3" sewage pipes installed below the tanks in order to make a clean installation with as little cable visible as possible proposed by Richie.

Now has SSM 4 drives with 18"x"28" props(up from 15" to 18" dia due to SSM 4 is 6" shorter), so far have only traced one of the original SSM 3 drives. Installed reinforced BW73 trannys to make it more manouverable(crash boxes are still in great shape) and the original K-planes is on with the exeption of the Nitrogen/fluid dampers ala Richie. When raced in England had Petterson side exhaust and those are changed in favour of Stelling headers from 1981(uncertain as from which race boat they came from)in the rear. The two big center tanks are removed but still has the 4 tanks in the engine compartment.

Current engines are 512 cuin 700hp/ 750 lbsft normally aspirated thru Weber 48 IDA setup. 1972 castings tall-deck GM-marine blocks partly filled with Devcon in lower water jackets, Callies 4,375 crank and 6,335" Crower rods, TRW pistons 11:1, GM open chamber square port LS7 heads cast 1973 ported and polished with Manley valves and springs. Mech flat tappet cam 240/255 degr @050- 0580/0600 lift-lobe sep 110 degr.Runs on 98 octane pump gas so far.

Engines that came with the boat from England were 454,s, 12,5:1, Carillo rods, roller cams, mech fuel injection and the front gear drive system with no fan-belts as used on KAM engines. I still have these engines in molecules. Plans for the winter is to install the fuelinjection(may substitute with electronic injectors) and geardrives on the 512,s or 454,s then dyno session and do some vintage racing next summer.

One of the UIM races from seventies - "Across Skagerak" was arranged this summer with only amateur participants and this is only 30 miles from my hometown in southern Norway. Could be fun to try and beat the record from Fino and Black Tornado the winners in 71 and 72.

Boat does approx 80 mph @ 5200 rpm indicating a tad to big pitch on the propellers. Still need to fill race gas and advance the ignition a bit more to give an exact figure as how fast it is.

As for graphichs all letter and number are made, but I need help from some of your guys in US with the US flags and Cigarette logos.

I would like to thank some of you people helping me out with info and pictures during the restoration, Richie-Marco-Nigel-Bob-Gene a big thank you!

The biggest reward as of my expectations came from my 22 year old son who has done many hundred hours of work after the first test drive, the SOUND was incredible as were the vibrations in the hull, both were felt into the bones............

I'll post some pics and videos at a later stage and keep you posted. At the moment I do not know how to or if I can post pictures on the forum anymore. Please advise.

Best reg Joern ( [email protected] )