Uncle Dave - I've seen pictures of your boat before and wondered why Lavey didn't paint or gel the bilge? Or did they use a clear gel on it so you could still see the stringers/coring under the layup?

Its clear gel-

Actually I liked the look of the vac bagged balsa.

Lavey would have been happy to paint it whatever color I wanted- but I choose to spend the money I would have spent on that on other things. Add to this the storage units that lavey puts in on either side of the engine basically block your view to the bilge and the 710 covers every inch outside of that so there wouldn't be much to see other than the inside of the hatch.

If you do a search on "quent" he has a 24 ft 710 powered bowrider with basically the same paint scheme & it has an fully painted bilge.

Dave

I finally got some picts - The painted bilge is Quents 24 Lavey with identical power. He painted the bilge and hatch.

The pict with the gal in it is my GF "cleaning my pipes" in the 2750 the batteries are mounted in front of the engine (2xpc-2150's)

In their place are the containers I spoke of/extra storage.

UD

26' boat? really I have a 29 in a 30' slip and it takes up every bit of it.......but I have never put a tape to it.

What Mike is referring to is the running surface. It actualy measures out to 26'10"(per APBA). Yes with the beak/swim platform it is at 29 and change total length so you would need your 30' slip.

Also on a side note with drive reliability for the illmor application, would a NXT work?

There is not a boat out there (except a barge) that measures the total running surface as what the Coast Guard rates it. A 29 Fountain is 29 FEET LONG. A 42 foot Cigarettes running surface is NOT 42 FEET. Give it a rest.

Come on Roger play nice lol You know as well as I do the reason mine was measured was for weight purposes in F1(2001). My weight requirement was 4600 if I was a true 29 I would have had to put another 150 lbs on board. Fever Mike was part of the tech staff back then.

Aside from the racing aspect of it and the rules at the time, you are 100% correct, a 29 is a 29.


Trent

Hey Trent, I just get tired of people trashing the length issue on Fountains. The Coast Guard rules, are front to back, and if the swim platform is part of the boat it is measured also. The beak is part of the boat so it counts also. The CG does not measure the running surface to determine the length they require boat builders to publish.

Probably would work just fine, and if you had the drive sitting Im sure you could figure it out- but why wouldn't you use Ilmors new Indy drive?

It's got less parasitic loss than an NXT, and is rated for even more power.

I just got back from San Diego had a 300 mile roundtrip- boat ran awesome got 2.3 MPG this trip.

I Love my Ilmor 710. No BS, no problems, no belt dust all over the bilge, no black soot on the transom, no starting problems, idling problems, nothing but reliable smooth HP delivered just like its supposed to be.

I have owned and hold in high regard highly Mercury marine product my whole life, I have nothing bad to say about them and will remain a customer of their where and when it makes sense.

Ive built & dyno'd over a dozen custom engines for boats and cars, and can say that its really hard to replicate what these guys have done in terms of an overall package.


Uncle Dave