26 REDLINE

Well how about some updates????

fastgator110+

I cant wait to see it in the water add a little orange and you can come to Florida and run with the FastGator Crowd. Post pictures please

hotstang46

well,,,,,,a long time waiting and we finaly got it in the water today. We headed out to lake elsinore in CA with two herring props, a 16.5x34 an a 16.5x30. We spend the whole day there and couldn't get the boat over 15 mph. The props were cavitating and just wouldn't grab. We were thiking we had to have a problem other than the prop, like with the tranny or something. After trying all we could and spending lots of time on the phone with rik at arneson and others with surface drive experience we decided it just simply has to be the prop. For anyone reading this please be warned that if you are doing an arneson on a boat that no one has converted before (with similair power) the main problem in the conversion is the availability of cleavers to test. No one stocks them and they seem to be near impossible to come by. We flat out need a larger diameter prop. I have to send out a major thank you to the head guys over at eliminator. They are lending us two props tomorrow to try. a 17x30 and 17x33 I believe. We will be heading back to the water to try them tomorrow. Once we get one that will actually plane the boat so we can putz around we will have the tuning guys come back to dial in the engine.

hotstang46

It was trimmed all the way down in these pics

hotstang46

So when we hit the water today after going no more than 15mph yesterday and cavitating real bad with the 34 x 16.5 and 30x16.5 cleaver I wasn't expecting too much today with the 17x30 cleaver (thank you soo much to Tony at Elminator for hooking us up with that merc cleaver to try ) Our engine is not properly tuned of course so it was still running a little rough. The boat today was able to plane. It took alot of rpm (4100) and seemed to want to fight it the whole way. But once on plane she flat out took off with even just easing into the throttle. We ran the boat for about 4 mins, and took it up to about 4200 rpms, she was doing a little over 90 and has ALOT left. Threw a cool roost as well. For anyone that hasn't followed the engine was dynoed and tuned but when installing the arneson we replaced the steel merlin heads with the new aluminum pro 1 dart heads. So tomorrow morning we meet the tuner at lake elsinore to do the tuning, now that we can get a load on the engine.

Even when I jumped off the boat today I was still dissapointed because I thought we were SOOOOO far off on props. But after talking to alot of people including RIK at arneson (who has been nothing less than a saint helping us through this) the high rpm needed to plane is just a characteristic of this style prop. Coming from bravo boats I guess it's just something I will have to get used to. However it would seem the performance once on plane MORE than made up for that. I couldn't be happier. I should have some more pics tomorrow and some performance figures tomorrow. We still don't don't know if this latest 17x30 is correct but at least tomorrow we can start to figure it out when we can open her up. I will try to get some pics of the roost tomorrow if I think of it.

mikebrls

i posted in the other fourm but had to give you another shout out. keep us posted today . this is a great speed # for 4000 rpms . the motor i would think redline's around 5800 to 6000rpms wich give you a lot of speed left im sure 110 to 120mph will be easy #s for you to get once you have the rite prop .and the best thing is a drive that won't break

good kuck
mike

hotstang46

When we were on the water this past weekend we didn't have much success. The boat wanted to kick out to the side at about 80 or more and was getting very very loose. There was almost no bow lift. We had to shut her down soon after because of a blown head gasket but it was not safe to see what she would do with the current boat manners. Rik is fashioning a sort of fin for the drive to keep the stern down and is rounding up a 4 blade cupped rolla prop for us. It is exactly what he has said will work get us to where we need so we can open her up and get a handle on the prop to order up.

I will update again once we hit the water.

CLA

There is a guy over on performance boats with a arn on his 21 daytona. Same problem at about the same speed.

I would think a round ear prop "chopper" style would work the best. Similiar to what the outboard guys run. You are going to need speed to pack air. IMO

hotstang46

Im sure it's the one at the eliminator factory. Bob leach was showing it to me a few days ago. We are in fact trying to locate a "cupped" prop. We will soon be testing a "cupped" rolla prop. Rik at arneson is also providing us with a few custom parts to mount on the arneson to pull the stern down.

tblrklakemo

Its a PITA but you are doing all of us a big favor on this little project of yours. The next guy to go this route will be able to skip the headaches...hopefully. Good luck.