Dan.... Sounds like you're on the right track. The only thing you said that concerns me is that with a 12" box, and that is what I am assuming that you are gonna use, you said 3.5-4" below the running surface. Right? Well an old friend of mine, a few years back, had bought a 28 Baja. He owned it for a few years that we wer'nt in touch. Over the few years he listened to everyone that told him what to do. He ended up with boxes on standard height bravos. Had about 700 hp blower engines also. Back one sunday in june of 02 when my Fountain was almost finished, he kept his 28 at the marina that we were rerigging my boat. Showed up one 90 degree sunday morning and asked me if I would be designated driver of his boat for the day cause all he wanted to do was drink beer all day long and party. So my wife and I took the front bolsters and headed for a day in the sun.
OMG what a ride !! At 60mph the boat started to bow steer just slightly. I ran the tabs up all the way. NO help. Then I started to trim the drives out, NO help. Practically trimmed the drives off the indicators, and no difference. WTF !!!!!! Still slightly wandering from right to left. So the only thing left to see was what would happen when I eased the throttles down. HOLY $HIT !!! at 75 mph and 5600 rpm this boat bow sterred so bad that it almost threw my wife and I out of the bolsters and him out of the back seat! And he was tellin me that this boat runs upper 80's. NO F'n WAY !!! Bottom line here is that with the boxes installed, they needed to raise the X. They did'nt. We tried putting a pr of Imco 2" shorties on it and it helped it out a little bit. NOT MUCH tho.

I don't remember how deep the drives were originally. When i see Jeff, I will ask him if he has any of this from 02 on paper anywhere. He might, or he might remember the dimensions.

The rest of the day, I was afraid to go over 55-60 mph. And no one believed me when i told them what this boat drove like till they drove it themself.

You may want to keep them props about 1.5 - 2" below.

Brian.... I'm not really sure what was done on the bottom. I do know they moved the strakes up and down. They lenghtened them and shortened them. What they finally ended up with is what worked the best. What it is I really could'nt say, cause I've never had the boat on a trailer next to another factory stock 10 meter. I do remember them saying that they lenghtened the pad though.

With moving the engines forward, I almost have enough clearance to put my leg between the top blower pulleys and the front drip rail under the hatch. A N/A setup would give you more clearance. I think I might have some pics of when I first bought it showing the room in front of the engines.

The trannys are a velvet drive 10-18-2, and they have a flange on the back of them that a coupler bolts up to and connects a 18-20" drive shaft to.

When the boats starts runnin over 90-95 mph, there is VERY little hull left in the water. I believe I have a pic of runnin at 100 on dead calm water.

Hey Frank, looks like your motors may be about 2-3" forward of where mine are... 1" of that is a result of a 10-18 tranny vs my 10-17's. I'm also running a tailstocks on my trannies, so your flange/coupler setup might account for the rest of it. Looking at your valve covers, they are a good bit higher than mine using the engine compartment drip rail as a reference. This is part of your higher X-dim, the SSM 5's are the other. This all helps alot in understanding where I need to go.

So where is that? 10-18's will be the first thing, so that will bring the motors forward 15/16". One question: do you use a rear engine mount? My trannies sit on the inner transom assy, and that's my rear mount. I'm considering a flange/coupler setup with a rear mount to make engine R&R a lot easier. As it is now, the drive has to come off first. I can do all of this with no transom work, same X.

The big unknown is whether to run a box or not. I think the consensus is if you go back 12", you go up 2" for the same effective X. I'm running 5 1/2" down from the running surface now, and I could benefit from another 1/2 to 1" higher with the boat as-is, plus another 2" for an extension box. That's up 3" on the motors, and transom assy's. Now we're talking glass work and re-cutting the transom. In itself, this isn't such a big deal, but I'm still trying to understand what I'm buying myself. I don't need more speed, so it all comes down to balance and handling when it's BIG out there. The other thing I'm trying to understand is how this will affect cornering. My non-stepped hull, with fairly deep drives cuts corners real hard, never an uneasy feeling. With my X-dim 3" higher, this is bound to change. It is a raceboat, afterall.

Dan, and Frank, Dan's boat isn't a Baja. Fountains tend to carry their bows well on their own, and that's why a transom-lifting prop like a Hydromotive works well with these hulls. With the bow lifting itself, and a prop that lifts the rear, the whole package loosens itself from the water, helping it fly better with more speed. Sure, it's a loose feeling while driving it, but I wouldn't call it an uncomfortable feeling. Loose=fast. Take a look at the pic above with your boat at speed. There's not much of anything planted in the water there - a beautiful thing.

Here's a couple of pics of my engine compartment for height comparison with yours. You have to look past all the goodies on the top of your motors, and see where the valve covers are in both pics.

Good topics here, cheers to both of you.
Brian

Wow! that pic of Franks Boat in Flat water is unreal!!!!

"Dan's boat isn't a Baja"
Thanks for noticing! LOL
My boat bottom is an early Reggie design. When Reggie moved operations to NC he left Bill Farmer and Excalibur boats in Florida with the 80's design Executioner. Bill built Excaliburs till 1984 sold the name to Wellcraft and closed the doors.
Reggie further developed the bottom and the boats that came out of NC were the next iteration. The boats out of NC had the Fountain Beaks and windshields.
My bottom is not as nearly refined as your Fountains (Brian, Frank and Bryan), but it still has a pad and a notch. (And Frank's is obviously many many many iterations from mine!!)

From what I can find I think the prop depth on 35 fountains are in the area of 4-1/ to 5 inches below the running surface.

So if I'm at 3-1/2 to 4 I'm an inch up. I don't really have the room to go higher up than the 19 inch "X" dimension that this requires.

If I shouldn't be looking at boxes maybe I should save my $$ ??

I seem to remember that Reggie said that they had to raise my engines 2 or 3", and they went forward around 10". Also the transmon was modified above the rub rail ehere the boxex mount.
I do have rear mounts also. The trannys don't have the tailstock on them. The tailstocks are located in the center of the boxes. They're bolted to brackets that are welded to the centers inside the boxes. I believe they're called rear bearing support housings.

Dan.... I think you will be OK without the boxes. Aslong as your prop height is no deeper than 3-3.5" deep.

Zanie, what are the round white pieces on the transom? I have seen these on other boats and wondered what they were.

Todd

Looks like "mood lighting" to light up the drives for that midnite skinny dip

Do you mean other OLDER boats?
It's the ancient mercathode system. The outer one is obscured by the tie down strap.
You should see the monster electronic control unit. It's the size of a large stereo amp.
I'll be using the new style much smaller control units along with the transom assembly mounted unit.

Mood lighting?...............hey, maybe I shouldn't fill those holes!

I got rid of my system when I redid the transom. I don't leave it in the water anyway.

OSO should have an award for the "Most Ambitious Project" done in your backyard. This forum has got to have the winner and a few runner ups...

So I emailed Fountain Powerboats figuring they would know what is best for my particular pad bottom notched transom boat .
I received a rather lengthy reply with some helpful advise.
I was told while boxes may give me a mile or two per hour top end, they may cause my boat to suffer in handling and low-mid range performance. He said MAY cause it to suffer. Since I don't have the resources for the trial and error, I'm passing. Obviously every boat and combination is different.

Good enough, No boxes for me, and I'm Setting the "X" dimension at 34.5" X 19" !

I've got enough things apart on this boat, I'm closing the book on the box option.

Thanks for all the input.
Dan