I think I would spend your Money on Props and blue printing of the drives before re-rig.

http://wilsoncustommarine.com/Page_2_6OGO.html

Wilson has had boats pick up anywhere from 3 mph to 11 mph just with blueprint there drives.


Jon

This is a great idea! I may need to send them my little lowers for some finessing.

Doesn't Wilson charge a small fortune for that? Rerig isn't really all that expensive. Just some time. I'm actually pretty surprised at how many guys suggest burying a "surface drive" deeper

Because they don't like how it docks and how hard it is to get on plane

I'm surprised no one suggested calling Phil Lipship . When I was putting the notch in my flat deck he was not only a wealth of information but went out of his way to help me. I'm sure he would have some good input on this issue.
R G .

We don't need Phil here, we have Adam!

Come to think of it you could be the Phil of active thunders, call it the Sydwayz Edition and charge an extra $100k, then mark your parts up 1000%

I hear on wanting to raise the X dimension, in hopes of speed and MPH. I think what guys are trying to say though, is be careful. The old Top Guns are great at one thing for sure, and that's their rough water handling. I drove ICDEDPPL'S 38 Flatdeck when he first bought it. With Boxes and SSM IV's and shaft 1/2'' above the bottom, yes, it threw a cool rooster. However, in somewhat mild Lake Michigan chop, the props were coming out of the water like it was a 10ft smaller boat in those seas. You HAD to drive it. My other buddy who has the same boat but with 3A's, would have just left the throttles alone and plowed through it sipping a drink. Holding cold blower motors at 5000RPM waiting for 17.5" five blades to hook up for 30-45 seconds kinda sucks. Everyone else is on plane and running 50mph and you're sitting there spinning your wheels, then trying to play the catch up game when there 2 miles ahead of you by the time you get up. Surfacing props, big power, and heavy old boat, is hard on drives. Contrary to what most people think, 6's can and do break. They are bad ass drives, but TNT, Collabella, Speedmasters inc, Marine drives, etc, are still rebuilding them daily.

From what I read, Oldschools boat was VERY stable at 100+ with the setup it had. Which is actually quite a feat, these old 38 Cigs can become a handful at those speeds. They really weren't designed for that.

With that being said, raising them up a inch or two, and spacing back down if needed is doable, if you can do the work, which you can. Who knows, it might be a win. The gear head Part of me wants to say go for it man! And raise those babies up and give it a run. The other part of me says, don't waste the time on it, build some sweet mills and enjoy a proven setup.

Here's my take on the $5,000.00 to blueprint the pair of drives...It's free speed for the gain in speed.

Lets just say you only gained 3 mph tops with the blue print, which my understanding is that
is pretty much guaranteed.


How much would you have to spend on the engines to gain that? A lot more!
Then the side affect to that is the engines are now working harder.
More fuel to work harder, and the parts still wear out,....so you will be spending
it again at the next rebuild.

Blueprint is the gift that keeps giving.

just my .02


Jon

So if raising the drives resulted in a 2-3 mph increase with boat running more efficiently the same could be said right?