I have only been to Havasu 1 time, several years ago. Very cool (neat) place and loved all the west coast "bling" there. More ways than one if you get what I am saying. I would assume if a person were going to "beach" their boat often you would put some sort of keel protection on there or carry a semi-truck innertube partially inflate it and pull up on it? We used to do that at Stockton Lake in MO back in the 70's and 80's. Or tie and old tire to a tree and that was you docking spot for the weekend. We would have these big campout parties and there was no courtesy dock near the campgrounds, so you brought your tire or tube to pull up on the rocky shore line.

it’s a cool lake and town for sure. People don’t realize from needles bridge up river to havasu springs at the south end of the lake by the damn is about a 50 mile run. And super scenic. South end of the lake is usually more sparse if boats while the upper river is usually crowded. Only a handful of places to eat on the water and frankly, none are great. Beaching boats in the main channel, 3 dunes, steamboat, pirate channel, various sandbars on the river is just kinda how it’s always been done. And I think 90% of the boats will beach, whether it’s a 50 MTI to a 19’ blown flatty. I’ve beached all my boats there. Yeah it’ll eventually rub the keel and you can see some rash on the keel edge but pretty easy repair once every few years. They do make keep guards but for some reason no one uses them. I think the fun vs anal about your stuff scale tips to the “F it” level most the time.

another cool thing about havasu that people don’t really even realize is they have events in town or on the lake year around non stop! Car shows and meets all year round, air balloon meet. National fireworks convention, concerts (last weekend while we were there there was a huge stage right at waters edge and Chris Janson That songs “buy me a boat” was headlining a country music festival. At the same time a bunch of boaters were throwing a “rock the dock” type event at The Heat Hotel Sponsored by DCB. Lot of nice nice boats hanging out. Couple weeks they’re doing an iron chef event. There’s off-roading, shooting, hiking, etc. all year round there’s events and stuff non stop it seems. Problem is, everyone seems to be figuring it out and home prices have sky rocketed and a huge influx of people. But you drive through town it’s boat eye candy overload. Performance boats and cool stuff everywhere!

Looks like a good time :) One of these days i'd love to see this beast for myself. I wonder how far Havasu is from Tucson🤔
Love the tow rig. LBZ or LLY?

I don’t think it’s that far at all Sam. ;)

and thanks. It’s an 05 LLY with Alison. It gets the job done. Bought it to pull the cafe when I came across a good deal on it. We were going to buy a bigger truck recently (F650) but my wife drives it and loves it. It’s had the cognito front end done, rear bags, system, alarm amp steps, updated headlights, chipped, 4WD.
, 130k miles. Rides like a cadi. I always say it is the best riding truck I’ve ever owned. Weird too, I get compliments on it all
the time. But now my wife’s eyeballin a new GMC Denali Duramax. Soooo this one may be going bye bye at some point in the near future.

Fantastic !
Glad you got to get out there.
Now I wanna try turning in dammit.
I didn`t like the ride turning in with the 5`s but the 6`s are different, higher and further back.
On my boat it doesnt like trim anything past level unless the speed is up there.
Usually a little past tucked does the trick.
5`s wanted a ton of trim.

Have fun with it !!

Just had a moment to check, about a 5hr ride. I'll make it up there at some point, it would be a pleasure to meet you.
I have an LLY also. Crew cab, 6.5" bed. Aside from a head gasket job, it's been a helluva reliable rig. She's tuned, 5" exhaust, all that. Fully loaded, comfortable and reliable- honestly the last best generation of GM trucks before they added in that DEF garbage. You'll regret sellin her, but then again they are going up in value quite a bit, just look on BAT (bring a trailer).

I didn’t get to really play with it too much but from the little bit of messing around with trim and tabs, it doesn’t like a lot of trim either. Bellow neutral and a little bit of tabs is where it seemed to be happy on the flat water. Never really got a chance to run it in anything but calm water. Ran usually 55-70 3k-4K rpm all weekend. I was more concerned with stopping and checking the engine compartment for any leaks and keeping an eye on the gauges. Like I said above, saw 90 for a quick blip and it was far from pinned and still draggin a little tab and not even at neutral.

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Gotta love the Cat Eyes. Mine is a 3500 07 Classic LBZ Leather. I bought it new. 150K miles. Everywhere I go it seems Someone is wanting to buy it. lol.
Put shell on in and beg rug in day 2. lift, air bags on back, and Train Horns. On second shell now. Several people have asked if it's an extended Suburban.
Pulled my Cig with ease.

I've had several, including an Avalanche; and all of them had the 8.1L 496 BBC.
This was my last one, LT with the tan leather interior; and it was VERY hard to part with it.
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I actually wasn’t a fan of the cat eyed chevy’s but they have grown on me. When we bought the cafe I was thinking I could get away with towing it with our 2500 GMC Yukon. WRONG! Fine on straight away. Sketchy up or down hills. So, went searching for something inexpensive to tow it with. I wanted a Duramax and wanted an LBZ or LLY motor. Didn’t want DEF. so, settled on something in the 05 - 2009 range.

i was poking around in riverdaves and Andy holthe (works for DCB and sells insurance) hit me up he was selling his 05. Original owner, most of its life kept in garage in havasu. 115k miles all the above mentioned upgrades. I’ve never owned or wanted a red car, wasn’t crazy about the car eyes but he said I could have it for 20k so I was like done. Didn’t even go see it. Had him drop it off at my son in laws shop in havasu and had him give Andy cash. Got it and the pride in ownership was immediately evident.
plus thing hauled azz, gets great fuel mileage and like I said, I’ve owned a lot of custom vehicles over the years, I don’t think I’ve ever owned a basically stock vehicle that gets more compliments. lol. I always teip
out. I suppose it’s the color. It’s a really nice cherry red. And the plant is in great shape. Super shiny. It’s been a fantastic truck. I sold the Yukon and have been driving an e class Mercedes while my wife drives the truck. I told her I’d get her a new Escalade when I sold the Yukon but a couple months ago when I told her ok let’s get an Escalade she said, I really enjoy driving that truck, I’ll just keep driving it. :D I said ok, I’m buying a Porsche. But ended up getting an S63 from Bobby. Alls well that ends well. We towed RWTD around this past weekend and the truck tows it absolutely fantastically. Zero issues. I think the gun may be lighter than our cafe was since it’s vacuum bagged and all. Definitely feels like it. Tows really well. So happy to have a cradle trailer over the I beam too. That helps the ease of tow a lot.

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I had a 01 2500 Crew LB w 8.1 before I got the LBZ. Got in new and put over 125K on it before trading for LBZ. The 8.1 is a very strong motor. Zero issues in the time I had it. Well except for rarely passing any gas stations at 10 MPG :ernaehrung004:
I also have a 3500 express passenger van right now w the 8.1. Was one in my work fleet but now it's at the lake house for transporting Drunks around the neighborhood lol
Plan on pulling it one day for some kind classic car install. Didn't want my crew fuking it up. Not that employees Ever abuse work trucks.:eek:

Now back to RWTD :riding:

Tank, Who were you able to get insurance through? My first gun was an easy insure but the second one a couple of years ago was a pain. Not many wanting to insure old boats with 1000+hp for any reasonable agreed value number, it seems. Would really like to get into another Gun at some point once the woman decides she doesn't want to slow boat anymore..

got quotes from a couple places. No one baulked at the power or age really. But prices varied. In the end Devon at Wozencraft came in with a good policy that I thought was very reasonable ($3200 a year no layup agreed upon replacement value, etc). Devon wrote the cafe policy too which was stupid cheap because of the power. I mean under a grand a year. lol.

speaking of money, just got the bill for deep dive full service including drives gone through.

“buy a #6 boat” they said.

lol actually no one said that. Now I know why. Anyone want to buy a kidney?. :picard1::faint2:

I'm not in the market for a kidney but I am sure I will need a liver replacement at some point.

:ernaehrung004:

What drive fluid are you running in those #6s?

Mercury Extreme performance gear lube 85W90 in drives
Mercury synthetic blend 25W50 in engines.

Curious. A guy I know here, uses Shaeffer in his 6's. Runs them offshore racing and fresh water also. When another local who services them services them and checks them for any issues, they usually put the used oil back in if there is no contamination. Scouts honor, I asked why, his reply is "it is that good". When I met him, I asked about Valvoline VR1 in engines, he said "best cheap oil there is"

Ha! I don’t care how good it is, you pull fluid out of any of my vehicles, fresh fluid goes back in. ;)

there’s lots of different options and opinions on oils and lubes, like everything lol. My son in law is the mechanic and he’s certified through Mercury, which includes crew chiefing for one of the MTI champion race teams. He’s used them all. Likes the mercury product for many reasons. Im good with whatever he says to use as I trust his knowledge and experience.

Tank, was that a cold start up? if so,...wow, idled right out the gate! sounds great! looks like you made the right choice with RWTD. Even the hatch was done nicely on the engine side. You gotta be so happy with it. I was in FLA last week so I havent been on here. I may have missed it, but Did you run it yet?

yep. That was dead cold fire up. Ran it the day before but not that day. And yeah, we went out and ran it a couple weeks ago for the first time. Shake down went well. All systems a go. Leaving in 3 hours to head back out to havasu for Supercat fest west this weekend. Will have the boat in the water for 3 days. Got a helicopter shoot lined up too. Weather is 90 next 4 days! Looking forward to a nice weekend.

shirts came out good too. Got some extras made for kids and what not at the dock party Friday night.
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Nice !! Here son- Why dont you wear this Smokin Cigarette shirt with the Devil on it to School :evilb:

lol. It’s already been discussed. One goes to private catholic school. The other will be next year :D

Did Dave do the shirts ?

no buddy of mine.

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I'm loving the pics for sure and glad you found the "1" you were looking for!!! Hopefully in the near future we can bring our lil AT out to Havasu to run with you. I'll try to keep up as best I can..

That boat looks soooo good on the water! Congrats again. Those are some great pics from the air.

Dude. Awesome. Long live the carbureted inboards!

Also, that's poster material. Are you a movie star?

best thing for anyone making a long tow out to havasu is to do supercat fest west then stay through the week to desert storm. Both fun events, both different type of events.

trying to keep up with you guys!!!

Pics from Supercat fest west

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Some more

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As always, thanks for posting pics and taking us along for the ride!

i somehow didn’t take one photo yesterday. But ran up to pirates for the official run. Packed up there. Channel was packed with crazy hardware. XInsurance helicopter ran with us up river for a while and took some shots. Buddy was on bored along with Ray Lee from
soeedboat and text me these photos. Then as we were leaving pirates pilot does a couple bad ass low level fly by down the channel. There’s video on TikTok my buddy posted. Havasulew on tik tok if you want to see it.


running back to to havsasu bumped it up to 95 for a short burst across whisdor bay. Still more left. Was not pinned. Only time since having the boat I heard the blowers really whine. 😁👍

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Kind of Weak on the Roooost pics :cool-smiley-027:

daaaaaaaaaaamn…you sound like my son!!! 😂😂😂

must be a bravo boat 😎

simmer down. ;) :D


it actually doesn’t throw a huge roost. Decent little one as seen above but not a huge one. I hear if I play with the props I can get it to throw a big roost. But the thing runs really nice with the props it has. Jumps up on plane nice and grabs really nice when you roll into it at speed.