Formula 292 / 302 owners..Help!!
 

About to pull the trigger on a boat. I just looked at two boats so I need your thoughts please. Last boat was a single engine 29 foot shockwave Lake boat. moving up to a twin. I'm looking for lake and ocean use i.e. Long Beach, CA to Catalina. Here are the choices pending surveys.

1986 F302. twin 454 stock. Older style controls, extras like vhf radio, Halon, new cockpit carpet, updated exterior painted graphics. About 236 hours on motors. TRS drives, Borg Warner transmissions. $15k. Seller open to sea trials surveys etc.

1990 292 twin 454 with Holley carbs. owner suggested 365 hp vs 330. Mercury bravo drives, newer offshore type controls. owner fired up motors so far sound good. Newer Formula interior such as sofa configuration. 550 hours on motors.
$19k and being sold by broker/owner. everything else is typical of 1990 292.

Thoughts on ride, comfort, cost of updating controls on the 1986? I think the cabin is a bit roomier on the 302 and it has a filler cushion for sofas to make a bed for the kids. 292 looks more modern due to absence of wood trim and ....well you guys get it.

292 is a way better option that will have a better resale for the future, the 87-92 SR1's will never go outta style

I would go with the 292 for the extra couple bucks, much more updated over the 302, and size is similar..

I was a bit concerned with the 292 swim step and exhaust configuration. Since the swim step has drain plugs, does that suggest potential water issues inside of the swim step? Or is it a design advantage for the exhaust to pass through a water filled area?

its for the silent thunder platform, the water must exit somehow..so it has holes..

Good info guys. Thank you. Any significant hull changes from 302 to 292?

I will probably continue pursuing this size boat. There is a local 357 with a Kaama surface drive / Borg Warner setup. My concern there is the towing and the surface drives. I figure its 12k lbs with boat and trailer. I'm towing with a 3/4 ton 8.1 rated at 12k.

Depends on "what spins your dial" in the style department. I'm old school so I have a nostalgia thing going on with the "Flat Glass" 302. It's more boat than the 292 and will ride better in big water. If you want something more contemporary you have to lean to the 292...I would personally like to have one of each.

Please do tell.....other than being a foot longer, how is it more boat?

And I too appreciate the old school. I've demo'd an 85 Mistress and surveyed an 86 Scarab III this year. But I'm becoming a fan of Formula build quality and creature comforts.

The 302 is gonna be heavier and ride better because of that, center of gravity is good too since its trs and has thr nice smooth transmissions... TRS drives are deeper too, not good for going fast but hooks all the time and rides great in the rough.

As far as looking at Mistress and Scarab, I can tell you that both of them are gonna ride more solid then the Formula, there is more bulkheads in the Mistress thats for sure, I have a Mistress and to me the ride is like no other 35 I been on, now for comforts, Formula for sure, thye have more cool stuff, I didnt care about all that as I wanted the ride, the cool stuff breaks when your hard on em in the great lakes...lol we have lost fridges, A/C units and broke windshields here...

If I were you I would buy the biggest boat you can afford and tow, you will want it later anyway, the 311/357 Fomulas are great all around boats and have tons of space...My .02 is stick with TRS in these boats as they ride way better...

I was able to take a 35 Mistress out on Lake Havasu, AZ. Cut, carved, and rode like it was on rails. Immediately responsive. But....no foo-foo in the cabin for the family. Unfortunately I keep finding Scarabs with transom rot and lamination issues.

That's good info, thanks. Keep it coming!

yea, the Mistress cabin was not meant for family use at all, most of the older boats will have rot, in a Formula your gonna wanna look real good at bulkhead under step, rear gas tank bulkhead and center stringer... and of course transom...

302 is an awesome big water boat. The flair of the bow is more pronounced and sheds that water out and away from the cockpit when you find yourself in those 6footers. Great classic look and comfortable cabin. I sleep on mine all the time. Couple of big block efi and its a great ride.

357 is my favorite boat from. Style point of view. However they are big and heavy. Formula designed the hull after the 38 cig hull and added way too much hook. It takes massive amounts of power to make the thing go worth a damn. It is better With the kaama setup.

Thanks Kaama302. I noticed the bow shape you mentioned. It also looks like there is more useable space in the cabin. What year is yours? did you ever update the throttle controls? Does your 302 have TRS drives?

and yes I like that flat deck look too

Here they are...

292

http://www.boattrader.com/listing/19...K%29-101871046.

302

http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/boa/3492175846.html


357

http://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/boa/3507513876.html

I'd make a winter offer on that 292 outta the three

Mine is a 85 with 1998 Merc 502MPI and Kaama Drives w/ Twin Disc Trans

Yes I have the Merc updated controls. I am doing Hardin Gauges this winter.

Chime in Kaama302, Your thoughts on the three links above...

357 hands down, clean unmolested, and you'll always want bigger so skip 3 steps of 2' at a time and go big.
The 292 looks to have merc 330's that someone phucked with

Lil red, what do you see in the photos that I missed? And I cant argue with skipping 2' at a time.

I like the 292, but little red has a good eye, valve covers are not original and something different about the thermostat housing if I`m not right I`m sure I`ll be corrected.:lolhit:

I would be a little concerned about the 357 with kid jumping off the back unless you get a big platform just my thoughts.

I love it. It's like CSI Formula! I will definately bring it up to the seller. This is a great forum. Happy New Year all and we will dedicate tonight's mojitos to you.

Any more thoughts on the boats...keep it coming

I have to say...I'm partial to the 302. If it's solid you get a lot of boat with it. Several people successfully raced that boat with a few mods back in the day and had good results. It's not a light weight top end machine but it will do very well in the rough stuff...not Cigarette "well enough" but a great family boat none the less.

Stout Big Block power is needed to push these boats to 70 and beyond but they are solid and roomy.

I like the 357 with 502's but obviously a lot more money, if that wasn't an issue i would go bigger, I am sure it is a nice ridding boat. can someone explain me the advantage of a surface drive.(kaama)

Very little drag from drives if any.

They are a far more efficient way to transfer power from the engine to the water. Much less power is lost in a KAAMA drive vs TRS The drive has only one gear to turn in the drive vs. 2 in a conventional drive. Also while on plane and properly trimmed 2 blades are piercing the water at all time. this leads to less drag.

I have owned a 1990 292 SRI for about 7 years and I have owned the 357 with Kamma drives for about 4 years. Both Formulas were awesome boats in their own way. The 292 definately has 330 hp engines, not 365's. The 330's have a single plane lower intake manifold and the 365's use a dual plane intake. Also, the 292 has the stock cast iron exhaust that will eventually leak water into the cylinders and would need to be replaced. The 292 is minus external hydraulic steering that the 357 has. Also, the 357 appears to have GIL exhaust that will last much longer and flow much better than the cast iron exhaust on the 292. I had a stock swim platform on my 357, but the drives still stuck out a little farther. I just purchased two plastic 40 +\- gal plastic trash cans, but the bottoms off and would slip the "covers" over the props with a bungie cord before I let wives and children exit the rear of the boat. Never had an issue with the props sticking out. The 357 is a wave crusher, no doubt and just rode fantastic. The 292 was also a great riding boat for its size, but was a little harder to control at speed. The external hydraulic steering I added really helped with keeping the 292 going straight and not getting out of control in heavy seas. The 357 will ride on rails in any water. While they don't make the KAAMA drives anymore, there seems to be a lot of parts and spare drives for sale on OSO and the biggest issue is replacing the boots which I understand may now be available. I agree with others that you will eventually want a bigger boat and the 357 is the way to go. That boat will always be work $20+k, so I don't think you can go wrong with it. Good luck.

I used to abide by the "bigger is better" philosophy, and naturally regarded the 357 as one to aspire toward.

But, after getting to know it a little better, I've reconsidered.

As Kaama302 states: the 357 hull sports a pronounced hook. This has a measurable effect on efficiency. It takes about 650 HP per side to make a TRS-equipped 357 get out of its own way. Certainly KAAMA drives will always improve performance, but the hull still has its faults.

Of all the performance boats Formula offered during the past 3 decades, the 302 SR-1 would be my pick. The hull design, with its flared bow, wide stance, and exceptional balance combine to make a pretty awesome package. Scott Porter took one racing in the mid 1980s and did very well.

They all need stout power, certainly. It seems everyone was ordering their boats with 330s in those days and were thrilled at the top speed of 57 MPH.

I bought a 292 '89 last summer and love it. I have the 365hp motors and it tops out at 65mph on gps. I had it out on shoot out weekend at the ozarks which there were 8 footers out that day. It was quite a ride , but I don't think a bigger boat would have done better if it was going slower. Anywho all are good choices . I love mine.

8 footers??? come on now....

Right there with ya. Seems I read a lot of overestimating seas on this forum. I run a 190 ft boat everyday in te Gulf of Mexico. I do weather for safe voyage on a daily basis. Also people shouldn't use a NOAA forecast for the seas as NOAA is rarely accurate. Very broad. True 3 ft seas and I can't keep the prop of my 272 in the water.

I drive a boat for a living and don't like taking my 190 ft steel hull offshore in 8 ft seas.

While not out there that particular Shoot Out, I can speak from other similar LOTO events. There probably were occasional wake patterns with an 8' difference between the trough and the peak. It's not waves, but wakes from all the thousands of boats leaving the no-wake zone and getting on plane. Keep in mind there are more and more cruisers and yacht's being driven like big runabouts, or with a bow high plow throwing the biggest wake that hull can. Put all this together in a narrow lake with a lot of sea walls, and you have a mess. 4-6 footers most every weekend during the season in parts of the lake, and if he says 8 leaving a shoot out, I'll believe there were some.

Yea, I hear ya, but hell even the Jet Express on Lake Erie barely throws a 8 footer.... I know the washing machine deal, Sandusky channel on Lake Erie is BAD.... + we get the normal square waves on Erie, 4 ft high, 4 ft apart... I still think 8 footer is pushin it a tad..8 footer is a big ass wave...

Damn...if the only place I had to go boating was a lake with 8 foot waves I think I would sell the boat and find something else to do. That LOTO sounds like a terrible place. I feel blessed to only have occasional 5"~6' waves near inlets during tide changes. Our seas in the coastal Atlantic here normally have a 2:1 or 3:1 set ratio that puts you on top of at least two crests with a 23' or larger boat.

Hell..when we have 8' seas no one in their right mind goes out unless it's a life or death rescue or some other horrible event!!:eekdrop:

I'm going agree with most of you and the 8' wave thing. I was caught in 8-10 footers on my sailboat in the middle of Lake Michigan several years ago. It took 60 mph winds, 4 hours and 80 miles of fetch to produce these waves. Lake of the Ozarks could never produces such waves, it just doesn't have enough fetch. With an 8 to 10 foot wave I could have my entire boat (32 feet) on the backside of a wave with room to spare on both ends. Once I made it over the top I would come surfing down the face and smash in the the backside of the next. It was an experience I never want to experience again! A 8 foot wave is huge and no way are you going to be on plane in a lake in such waves. I've also seen some large boats take off and I've never seen one kick up even a 5 foot wake. Think about it, it a 50 foot boat made an 8 foot wake it would swamp itself when it stopped, the transoms are not 8 feet high.....

Endeavour32: Your experience on a sailboat sounds scary, but that has little to nothing to do with water conditions on LOTO. You are allowing your local experience of Michigan lake water to influence your views of other waters, and in this case that does not work.

LOTO waves have nothing to do with wind 99% of the time. They also have nothing to do with fetch. It also has nothing to do with the spacing of the waves, as it is very tight with no pattern. It has everything to do with wakes in confined areas with vertical sea walls to transfer the energy back into the boating area.

The OP (who claimed there were 8' waves, not me) was addressing a particular part of the lake, following a particularly crowded event, at a place where all these boats were getting on plane. While probably very few to none (other than maybe the 50'+ Carvers, Blue Waters, and SeaRay's) are capable of making a wake close to 8', when you get wakes running into wakes, colliding and making troughs, I'm willing to trust that there were 8' differences between the low and the high next to each other at certain points in that watery mess. He never claimed the entire lake is like that, and you need to stop thinking of Great Lakes when you think of LOTO, just like someone from the coast needs to stop thinking of the ocean when they think of the Great Lakes. These are different waters with different causes of their unique conditions.

As far as your comment about a 50' boat swamping itself from it's 8' wake if it made one: Oh come on. That is a straw man argument, that is also full of holes in its own logic.

Hey Chart, PM me. I started this thread. I ended up with a 1986 F302. Getting new trailer, cover, and minor checks by Wilkes Marine. Can't wait to get it out to Catalina Island in a few weeks. Send me any photos of yours. The upgrade thread on this forum is great. I need ideas. I will respond with photos or a link so everyone in the forum can see. PS got a smokin deal on a new aluminum trailerfrom Kokopelli trailers in Phoenix, AZ. They are associated with Platinum trailers in Florida.

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I have been to LOTO and while the waves were not 8 foot there were areas were I would say we dropped down 6' and that was outside party cove and there were no "big" boats there at the time just a butt load of smaller ones. I was blown away that a lake could get like that. I can also see it getting like Chart said if you had a few of the larger boats running down the lake in some of the narrower areas.

6/8 no differance, we have a narrow area of river and on a hot sunny day it can fet pretty bad ive see 6 ft rollers off the back of one of them tanks easily and when the waves bounce between shores the can become violent and tws the can gave some crazy holes in the middle, when we great lake guys/ocean guys say 6/8.ft waves we think of the huge swells we often ecounter especially here on the east end if lake erue

I have not been to all places to boat... But friends have.... I am told there is nothing like Lake Erie.... None other I know for sure Lake Erie can hand you your azz if your not watching....