87 272 top speed
 

A friend of mine is looking at one with twin small blocks, wondering how fast he could expect. thanks Doug

About 63 w/ stock 350's... that's what mine did. Then did 73 w/ B&M 144 blowers, cam and head change. :cool:

Hm, my first post after just reading for the last year...

Is that speedo or GPS? I only ask because my 272 with stock 7.4s hits 67 or so on the speedometer, but best GPS speed shows 63.9. The damn thing is either too heavy or not very aerodynamic...

Vinny 272, did you have any room to work on them? Could you change the plugs on the inner banks without pulling the motors?

Speed was on GPS... No problem with the plugs, as long as the manifolds were cool, anyway! The biggest problem is with the hull itself...Check the very back of the running surface for a molded in "hook", all of the Formula's from that era that I've seen have them. It's like a built in trim tab that's always a little down. Makes the boat handle better at lower speeds, but makes it more difficult to make them go fast. You can blueprint the hull and have it removed (kinda pricey)

I've got a lot experience with mine, I just purchased it from a friend and it's had 3 sets of motors in it, the last was a set of built-up 535's that got it up to about 80, but with some handling problems because of the hook, and maybe becuase it needed external steering, too. It's also had a set of blown 350's in it as I mentioned before (73). Everything was measured on GPS, as I was the white-knuckled one in the passenger seat with the GPS unit!

My current plan is building up a set of 383's w/ prochargers to go on them, extension boxes w/ 3" rise, long K-Planes. Hook has been removed and transom re-enforced, although there's plenty of fiberglass in there. Call me crazy, but it's cheaper than a new boat! I'll let you know how it turns out...

I'm curious about that hook removal. Did you reinforce the bottom as well as the transom because of removing the hook? I always figured they had that molded in for good reason, but I could get the same effect with K-planes at cruising speeds. What was the cost and time to do it??

It was done by my friend before I owned it. He has a LOT of experience with body/fiberglass work and did it himself, after doing a bunch of research and talking to a lot of boat hull blueprinters. Those guys seem to be very familiar with the it... you don't have to take my word for it, call any one of them. In 1987, 65 was really fast for a boat, and the hook didn't really become a problem until after that speed. A lot of manufacturers did them at the time since they made the boat very predictable and hard to make handle badly through bad driving (trim, etc)... but no one seems to be doing it any more (we're all obsessed with SPEED now!)

As I recall, it took him a couple or three days worth of working on it, just actually grinding off the material and checking it with a long straight edge, then sanding it with a long sanding block. Cost of materials is negligable, but it's very labor intensive. The interior of the engine compartment has been glassed and reinforced over where the hook was taken out, but if you compare the inside and the outside, you can see that it's just extra material, it should be as strong as any other part of the hull without any additional reinforcement, but he did it anyway just be sure, adding overlaping material over the entire section that was removed and a little way up the transom.

The boat has no adverse effects in handling since the hook was taken out, and it is much "lighter" in the water, more responsive to trim and carries the nose a little better. Since I'm going to have the engines out anyway (they actually turn the boat upside down when they do this!), I'm considering having the entire hull blueprinted (sharpening the chines / strakes, totally flat and level, etc), although I may not since it looks in really great shape anyway.

So bottom line is, I don't really know how much it would be, although I've heard estimates of $6-10K, which includes removing the motors and drives, turning the boat upside down, performing the work, and re-rigging. I certainly wouldn't try it myself either, although after having seen it done, it's mostly a lot of hard work.

Got a little long winded here... I'd be happy to talk to you about if you want, or hook you up with the guy that did the work(also an OSO member). I've heard of these boats going in the 80's with hulls blueprinted (not with stock power, obviously). I'm shooting for that, like I said, I'll let you know how it turns out!

Thanks for the info. That might be a future project if I need to pull the engines.

HEY BILL...E-MAIL ME AT HOME AND I WILL GET YOU THE INFO YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.

DABEEZER

I had a 1989 272 with Twin 350's. It did 63-64.
It did have a good size hook in the bottom. I went with a bigger Formula instead of speading the money to remove the hook.:) :)