chuck21401

I remember that boat! Also remember a story about a broken steering cable at speed, does that ring a bell with you? I was like 12 at the time that boat was running around.

Mike Baldwin

HI Biggus I actualy wanted to put a B/W C72 trans in mine but i would of had to more the rear set forward, not a good thing.My c71 has been a few problems and it just fits if i were you and have the money l would buy a XR drive and be done with it, that old TRS isnt going to like 850 HP

Firewalker

A buddy has one that ran 84 mph on the Gaffrig with a 454 and a baby blower. This was with a Bravo drive. Boat is easy to drive.
He then pulled the bravo and put a number 2 speedmaster in with a Merctrans and it ran the same speed. He raised the X so that the top of the gimbal is even with the rub rail. He has now had the entire seat moved 8 inchs forward and had the hatch modified for this and a pro stock hood scoop as he had Keith Eickert build him a 715hp blower motor, and he wanted to run the BW tranny over the weak merc. This combo has not yet been assembled.
Cool boat. I have 5 friends with them, I like them best with small blocks they drive the nicest. The best has a 383 with a blower ( about 475 hp ) and runs just under 80.

RT

Mike Baldwin

fire walker It sounds like your buds have some nice 20footer how did they miss our 20foot poker run it was a ball mybe next year we can talk them in to comming

Firewalker

they are pretty popular up here, they are the next step up from the donzi 22 that everyone on our lake seems to have.

DirtyMoney

How do the ext. boxes work on these boats?

Sam-SS

Hi Jake1250 and Chuck21401,

The 20' Cigarette, "Invictus", was mine and I ran it for about
10 years. "Out of control, not at all"! It was running a 625hp
engine and the best speeds that I got was exactly 80 mph
on the radar gun. It was running a beefed up TRS with a
Stern Power speedmaster adapted to the TRS upper housing.
The boat did get airborne out near Thomas Point Lighthouse
one nasty day when I was racing Art Lilly (I was ahead) and
hit a maverick wave and the boat went airborne and I was
thrown out, suffering some injuries. That was my fault as
I was flat out and running too fast for the water conditions.

The story that you relate about broken steering was in a '68 Donzi
that I owned for 15 years before the Cigarette boat. That incident occurred on the Rhode River, Mayo, Md and a 1/2" SS bolt in the
mount for the steering where it attaches to the tiller broke. Due
to a nose cone on the Volvo unit, the boat steered itself out of
control and went wild and rolled and crashed on me. Then
rolled on over and took off without me. It did a barrel roll out
into the woods on the Smithsonian experimental farm property.
If you remember Glen "Daddy Rat" Patterson, he and some other
guys pulled it out of the woods and as far as I know it is still
being used today. I sold it to Dave Govatos of MDG Performance,
in Londantown, MD.

I now live in Treasure Island, FL and have a 31' Kevlar Excalibur that is restored and repowered with a pair of crate 502s.

If you would like more information on Invictus and how it was
set up, I would be glad to share that with you.

BTW, in my openion, rigged correctly, the 20' Cigarette hull should be stable on up into the 90mph range, given enough horsepower. As a rule of thumb, it takes about 20 hp to raise the speed 1 mph. That would mean it would take about 825 hp to achieve a 90 mph speed. However, your limiting factor would be to get the TRS transmission to hold that much horsepower. I do not think that it would handle much more than 650 hp. I had increased the transmission line pressure and installed bronze
heavy duty clutch plates and it was reliable at 625 hp.

BTW, Invictus was sold to a guy in Washington state in 1992 and it was recently spotted in California.

...>>Sam
[email protected]

rws

iTrader: (3)

Sam,
This boat has the same outdrive setup as your boat( TRS Upper/Sternpower Lower),could it be the same Boat ? Mike B. knows the history it belongs to his friend Dean.

Sam-SS

RWS,

I think that you intended to post a photo but that did not come through and I could not read it anyway as I am only a basic user.
Could you e-mail it to me and I will look at it?

There were only three of the adapter plates to mate the TRS upper to the Stern Power lower made that I know of. These were made by a guy in New Jersey who worked at a high tech machine shop. The one that I bought was the last one. I do not remember his name as this has been more than 20 years ago.
The other two I believe were put on a 28' Magnum twin.

This combination had some benefits and also some shortcomings.
The benefits were that it handled beautifully with no steering
torque whatsoever. It also came out of the hole like a "Bull Frog". Sadly, he bad news is that it was a bit slower than the TRS. Also, if one hit a large wave at speed, creating a high bow up situation, with the prop 8" or so further back and the small skeg center mounted, it would tend to kick the stern sideways, almost creating a spin.

With this combination I had raised the engine a full 3", requiring very custom Gill exaust pipes to be made and the air cleaner had to be sectioned to clear the deck lid. I continued to run it as the handling was so good. The top of the TRS was right into the
gunnel rail.

In another post in this thread someone asked about set back
boxes. I now believe that this would be the hot lick for this
hull. The hull really liked the prop further back and the set back
box, using a drive with a larger skeg should work well and not
exhibit the tendency for the stern to kick sideways, in an extreme
bow up condition.

With these hulls, twin ram hydraulic power steering and "K" planes are essential to good handling.

...>>Sam
[email protected]

GEOO

Sound's like a fun project.
I think the 20 Cig. had two hull designs. The older one was the same rounded bottom hull design as an 18 or 22 Donzi. The later models had a pad on the bottom. I know the older round bottoms should be able to run up in to the 100 mph range with 800-850hp and 110-115 with 1000hp.
18 Donzi will run 100 with a 700hp.
22 Donzi will run 100 with a 850hp.
The trick is to get them to handle well at those speeds. Takes a lot of prop testing, set-up.