I've been lurking for to long, time to share
 

I just love reading about peoples projects, so I think its time for me to share mine. About 3 years ago I thought it would be fun to have a boat, never had one before but I thought the kids would like to go skiing and such it would be fun cheap and easy family time. Not knowing anything but i did know I would have to have something better than a bayliner, may be a fourwinns so I spent the next months watching Craigslist. Then I found a listing for a 27' 91 signature with Honda motors about an hour away. I went and meet the guy and long story short it was his dads and he had died and he wanted to get it you can see from the pictures it was close but need some help (my kinda project, and if it didn't work I could sell the trailer alone and get my money back). If you know about boats red flags would have been going like crazy but I seen 27' and 2 motors. Well the man that had set it up must have been some sort of junkyard guro and althogh he set up so many things right on he was a little off in the coast gaurd department. It had 2- Ford SHO v-6 mated to 2 powerglide trannys to two inboard props. The exhaust was dry and ran under the floor to the back of the boat. It took a couple of weeks to get it running (new injectors) and other things but it was running I took it out to a local lake that was long and not very wide, just in case I figured out I could make it to shore. The first thing I learned was the stering was 180 degres off and top speed was maybe 20 knots then I noticed the floor was starting to smoke remember the dry exhaust so we headed back to the landing. Now what, I decided to learn more about boats thus bring me to this great site. I decided to take the leap down the rabbit hole, and how deep it goes! I decided to keep the hull find a big block and a bravo and do it right. I still am alittle bummed at the lack of info on Signature boats, I did find everything on this site that there was and would still love to know more, like if they were done making boats in the early 80's why is mine a 91? I've looked up my HIN but it says it isn't valid. Any ways I'll post some pics of when I looked at it, and will continue to tell you what Ive learnd and how long its taken what a journey

The hull and trailer look good, but two V6 inboards mounted forward is going backwards speedwise! I'm sure you'll have better luck (and speed) with a mildly built big block and a Bravo I. Was this a raceboat in its previous life? Good luck with the boat-please post alot of pics on your conversion. Welcome to OSO!
Bob

I would put on a pair of outboards and call it a day!

That has got to be some sort of custom job. I think you'll like the boat a lot with a bravo and 350-500hp. Plus if the transom is solid, it should be a pretty simple cut and go.

lmao with the radiator and fan! And was that set up with dryer vent hose for the air cleaner?! Love it

Pull those motors and junk out, sell them and put a pair of used OB's on the back. You 'll be doing 50 mph and not be on fire.

Wannabe

Yamaha made those engines, and they were really good. There has got to be good, beer-fueled story behind how those got in there.

Can you tell what it had originally? Bravo makes good sense but it would be worth sleuthing out the transom first. Maybe the cutout is still basically there but just covered up?

Oh my!

Yamaha designed them Ford Built them At the Cleveland Engine Plant #2

Yamaha designed built and supplied motors to Ford for the SHO from 1989 to 1995.

Just weld a bung on the exhust to inject water. get bigger props for more speed I would say way smaller diameter and much more pitch. I would say get the props closer to the bottom of the boat and run one rudder. May need a wide set of trim tabs. You should have plenty of HP there to get to 50 or over even the way its set up. If you don't like it then sell it, do some better research and buy a set up more suited for what you are looking for.

They were great motors for sure and can def be adapted for use in the boat. I'm just finding it hilarious that they kept a radiator rather than adapt to raw water cooling. Too damn funny. You have to keep the story going...

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/s...atdrink033.gif

Are those radiators or oil coolers? Look a little amall to be for coolant. Still, why not use a marine cooler :lolhit:

Looks like someone spent a ton of time on that project.

That is the strangest powerplant on a boat I've ever seen. LOL at the idea of dry exhaust that close to flammable things. Jesus christ. Whoever made it didn't know much about boats.

After a closer look the lines go to the tranny

It's clear the person involved with this build has approched it like a "Survivor" series in rigging.........Just look at the proplusion system, it took some time to figure it out & weld it all together. Crude as it may be, it was much harder to do this "Survivor rigging" then go out and spend money on a marine engine & drives...............either crazy & cheap -or- a pact with the rigging devil!!

Very interesting, so much for passing a Coast Guard Safty Inspection:eek:.....Where exactly did you find this boat and whats the story with it???

From the pic's it looks like the hull had a single engine with a TRS drive. I posted this in a post back in February [Never seen this one but??? This may be one of the boats that was used to haul square grouper. I heard that there were a few of Tom's boats set up with large hatches for hauling that product] after a few conversations with Mr Sheer Terror Bobby said the Signature hulls were a Magnum copy with one change, wider lift strakes. :eek: With this modification the hulls would ride higher not looking like they had a load of product in them. :party-smiley-004:

You guys should have been around before I bought this thing, I amazed at all the things you've caught. I am glad I bought it though I really like the lines and as much as I'd like to find more of them I'm glad its not an average boat. The radiators were for the powerglides witch I did end up getting water coils instead worked better and less battery draw. I am suprised that nobody questioned the trannys-how many boats have Park and 2 gears. Witch became a problem trying to go from reverse to drive, props didnt wanna stop. I found a pair of 327 pacemakers on ebay and bought them, I thought that that would solve my exhaust problem. After I started digging into them I found out that they were actually 283's and that didn't solve my tranny issues. I played around for the next couple of months and could come up with nothing that would be right, just my luck I found a guy with a 260 Power Quest that just had his engine rebuilt the last season and had a hot line on a 525 and XR drive that he wanted bad. I was talking to him that night on the phone and it was like 9 pm and he said where do you live, I told him and he said well I'm less than an hour away I 'll bring my boat to your house and you can here it run. Sure enough about midnight we shook hands and I bought his 98 7.4 MPI and his Bravo 1, engine drive complete. It was a blessing, I went to his shop Loaded everything up and took about a hundred pictures of his empty bilge, and a ton of measurements. So heres were my wife just shakes her head, I gutted the boat so in my barn were the new MPI, the used 283's and the SHO's and trannys and a boat with holes in it, I could tell she had her doubts I tryed to explain but what do you say -- It will work trust me!

Ha! Sounds like a move in the right direction tho. Good luck and post pics!

I had a 1990 SHO. Motors ran great, had lots of fun embarrassing the kids in the Cameros who had no idea. The only bad part was the clutch,,,it was crap.

As far as the HIN Maybe the boat was a stolen repo or salvage which they usually renumber and the year reflects the year the boat was renumbered In NY the marine bureau comes and renumbers a boat and the last 2 digets are the year renumbered and than followed by the letters ZIP If I remember it right. made up example would be like NY 1134511zip.or was it nyzip no sure But it might be the reason on your boat