Theres a 48 EC in Ontario that has triple 700's... not sure on top speed but its probably one of the fastest cruisers ever made!

Went from a 93mph 35 Lightning to this, and never looked back. It is awesome in the big water, and you can stand up and pee.
We trailer it with a TopKick DuraMax and it pulls fine, but gets squirrelly over 65mph with the tanks full. Never a dull moment.
Again, any input on an Arneson conversion with the 496HO's?
Carder

What kind of input are you looking for? You should contact Rik at Arneson. If you are currently running BIIIs you should see a significant increase in top speed and cruise efficiensy. Possibly 10 mph.

I'm curious if it has ever been done on a 38.
I have a bad history of being someone else's free guinea pig for unproven R and D...
... don't want to make that mistake again.

Fill in the step, large dia. 4 blade elephant ear props (at least 18'), get them as low as possible, & notch the hatch on the inside to clear the air cleaners. There you have it!

Why do want to fill in the step and run old technology props deep in the water? How do you mount ASDs deep? Makes no sense to me. All the diesel ECs with ASDs and the other boats with surface drives run cleavers and it works perfectly. The Fountain hulls, sport and EC hulls have run with ASDs and other surface drives before. I fail to see how it's new. I've never seen a Fountain with a different hull, just because it ran a surface drive.

Carder, if you are seriously considering this, the guys to talk to, are Fountain Performance Marine and Rik. ASDs on Fountains are nothing new, they know how to do it. If the sport series and EC 48 can run surface drives, whether it being ASDs ,#6 and so on, why not the EC38. It's the same kind of hull. Also, according to Rik, notched transoms are in most cases not an issue - if it is, usually a minor one. Just remember that dialing in is a must, there is no such thing as plug and play drive installations.

Fountain guys, do you have an input here?

Rik knows my boat very well. Had the installer listened to Rik in the beginning I'm sure it would have worked out differently. The drives were installed too high on the transom due to the 38'S UNUSUALLY HIGH DEEP STEP yes, it is different than other 38"s. In my sitiutaion an ideal install would have been to either fill in the step or make a water deflector to close up some of the step so the angle of attack off the bottom would have been correct. What you are not accounting for in your post is that the step on the 38 sport fish & ec are higher. There is a significant weight difference in the front of both boates that change its planning characteristics compared to the sport boats. If you want surface drives & the speed that goes with them theres no doubt in my mind Rik & who ever he works with can make it happen correctly.He is the man, and the Arnesons are awsome when there installed correctly.

Carver, if you will measure your the center of your propshaft to the running surface you will see that it is 4 to5 inches below the running surface, thats so it will plain out due to cg's heavy in the front. I am currently having 525's installed as we speak, hoping for 70+.

Anyone else have any input on owning one of these?? Spring is coming and i don't want to be boatless

I recently purchased a 2004 38EC through Fountain Performance Marine. I did a lot of research prior to this purchase. I couldn't find any other cruiser this size that had the performance characteristics this boat has.

"I am currently having 525's installed as we speak, hoping for 70+."

Very interested to know how your boat performs with your upgrades. Please keep us informed.

edit:

I contacted Rik at Arneson Surface Drives. He said two 38EC's have been retrofitted with these drives. (I'm guessing Slug-ger's 38 may be one of them.) Rik also stated there are two configurations of the 38EC's hull, one with a transom notch and one without, and stated the one without the notch is not a problem, and he said the one with a notch will work also. The Arneson Bravo conversion kits run $23,125 each.

Big question in my mind is what the performance differences would be when attached to the various 38EC engines (496's, HP500's, or 525's). My thought is, higher performance figures and lesser maintenance costs may make these drives a good deal over time., but I'm new to this game. Any thoughts?