Redoing the Cafe
 

Okay I want to join the ranks of redoing a Cafe. I have owned the boat for 6 years and have thought about selling it and moving up, but instead I have been redoing it piece by piece year by year and not can not give it away so I thought I would see it the finish. Here is the boat as of this summer.

A couple of years back I redid the dash and cockpit interior shifters, throttles etc.

I repowered with some warmed up 500HP's. motors are 560hp. The boat runs great for a heavy sled and has seen consitant gps speeds of 78mph. I added Imco hydraulic steering, BB Blades labbed props, I rebuilt the drives and every cable replaced.

Okay so that brings me to this fall where the boat is being sanded down and completely repainted. I will post some updated pics at the end of the week but here is the project starting to get under way.

The rub rail is off and going to get repolished. I was not sure if I should keep the polished steel or go with a white one, but I thought the stainless would hold up better.

The old cleats have been removed and I am having the pop up cleats installed. Not sure on the nav light yet.

Quick note the trailer is a yard trailer and is not mine. The boat is coming off the trailer and is going to be blocked up.

Here are the mock sketches done by the painter. I am going with a combo of the top and bottom sketch. It will be the top theme and colrs with the layout of the bottom pic. The graphics are going to get narrower and follow the bow line for a sleek look. The Cigarette logo is going to be a little larger and is going to be painted and airbrushed carbon fiber.

Looks good so far and its going to look great with the new paint! What size props are you running?

Thanks the props are 26 bravo's. Did you just buy Jeff's boat? How does that thing go? That boat looks brand new!

Looks great Frank! What ever you do do not put a white rub rail on it!! Cigarette's are known for having the stainless steel!!!

Wow, you've done some nice upgrades! Keep us posted!

Thanks I kinda felt the same way.

Thanks it would have been alot cheaper to sell it a couple of years ago and bought a twin step Gun but what fun would that be?

Have been in this boat alot over the last 6 yrs. Frank has made some huge upgrades to this boat. Its nicely done and fast for what it is. After this paint upgrade is done, youll only have acouple things left before you sell it to me.( for .50 cents on the dollar!!! )I would like whipples and XR drives...thank you. No, but I am really lookin forward to seeing this boat all done. Oh, dont forget the covergirl cabin!!!

Yes, I did, and he did a ton of work on it, and it draws a crowd everywhere it goes. :)

He got it to 75 on the test run. I've only had it out once, and it was dead calm with sticky water, but my friends and I are thinking it might prefer to run with 28's. I have access to a set and might try them out this weekend if the weather holds.

Id also say it'd be a waste to convert the boat to a cover girl cabin for basically 1mph and loosing any resale value if you ever wanted to sell it in the end.

Good luck with it will eat up the rough stuff that is for sure. What are you running for power?

Thanks Kevin! It has been fun doing something to the boat each year and now you have your own Cigarette to piss money away on.

The guy painting the boat does some unbelievable work. His airbrushing and custom stuff is just awesome. Here is a link to some of his work, he has mostly bikes on here but if you go under the vehicle section you can see a 42 Fountain he did. I will be updating this thread to show progress.
http://www.jayzcustompaint.com/

Looks awesome so far!

Frank, are you redoing the sun pad this year also? Would be cool to redo it to match the paint scheme.:party-smiley-004:

Can't wait to see the finished product Frank. Plus when I sell mine and become a boat bum I'm gonna enjoy criusing on your newly painted ride!!

Is this Jason? Look, gettin rid of the Corvette doesnt mean you have to give Mary your balls forever! Keep the boat, and tell her she can just hold on to them for a while. If you sell the Vette AND the boat everyone will put you in a catagory that only certain people go in......I think you know what I mean. Unless of coarse you sell it and then purchase something with a #1 on the side! Then you get to go into a WHOLE NOTHER catagory. Then your balls are yours forever!!!!!:drink::drink:

looks great I have a 91 cafe owned for 10 years still think its a great boat, on my 3rd set of motors ateco built a set of 525 hp carb motors now have about 20-30 hours , interior 4 years ago, i do have a question whats it cost to paint ?mine needs to come into this century

Nice work, looking good.

Props : my '91 Carbon 70 had 25p Bravo's and with 600hp per ran lower 80's.

Well I am putting in new pop up cleats and nav light and a couplle of extras but the total cost will be around 18-$20k. How do you like the Aetco motors what props are you running and what speed have you seen? Post of pic of the old girl.

Thanks! 80's thats pretty good in a Cafe not many of them in that range. The two things I do like about these boats is deck lines sloping down in the front and they do handle well in the rough stuff, they just aren't gonna be the fastest in flat water....oh well it's still a Cigarette right?

aetaco's are great
 

the aeteco's run perfect Bill is great to work with.im turning estimated 525 hp out of a 502 with hp 500 manifolds and carbs kept the old school theme with power plant. also while motors were out ,removed the wishbone and put in teague switchable tips .still turning the old 4 blade 24s on bravos with 1.50 but have 26 and 28s in the garage. have not had time or wheather to work on dialing in top speed. but i will say it runs better than it ever has.

And just for clarification, they were 3 blade.

A couple of new pics. The deck is getting sanded down today. It won't be long now before the graphics are going to be layed out.

It has a pair of 582's in it. Jeff said they dyno'ed at 610 with the dyno headers on them, running Gil exhaust so he was thinking they are around 550.

They are very strong, that's for sure, and sound great. They are set up pretty conservatively, and I'm going to keep them that way, I would rather be on the water going a few mph slower than I than in the garage rebuilding motors. :)

Just waitin for some updated pics! :drink::drink:

Here are the colors.....paint should flying soon!

Hurry up. Blue and silver are my favorites.

A couple of updated pics. The silver base coat has been sprayed the transom done in purple, the lines for the graphics have been layed out.

couple more

That's going to be bad azz! Can't wait to see the outcome.

i must say i think that this is going to turn out great. How's the arms feel after block sanding the sides? I really enjoyed doing that to mine. Nothing better that a perfectly flat side to reflect the water!!!!!!


adam

Thanks! I am starting to get excited. He has to still pull lines for the bottom graphics and the logo. The paint should really pop after he outlines and air brushes all the detail, it should give the appearance of layers and give it it some depth.