Rambunctious

How about:

1) Poor mans silent choice.(loud choice?) a solenoid to control the water flow to the risers. shut it off once the thermostat opens, reducing overal water to the exhaust. making them louder, and having more power output.

2) (top fuel dragster like) parachutes on the big cats, saving the cat from a full blowover. deploys at say... 45 degree pitch. (you shouldn't be there anyway). pulling the stern, reducing speed significantly, and hopefully leveling the boat and preventing a full blow-over.

3) Digital outdrive/trim indicators using linear, or rotational transducers and digital meters. can even have set points, one touch, trims to optimal trim setting for WOT. (patent pending)
Kinda like your seat memory on your Beamer or Lincoln. I'm working on it since my mercruiser guages NEVER WORK!!!! Arg!!

4) Another product my partner and I are working on right now. grand opening in a month for a product most boaters here will like and hopefully use. See my O.T. request for help/advise on small company startup.

Ron P

Shifter, we raced during 95 and 96. The boat is now owned by Jeff in Sarasota. He added the extension boxed and the third center tab.

I hear it will race again this year in SBI F2.

Cattitude

What about a simple water injection system for NA and blown apps- would'nt that have an intercooling effect and bring more oxygen into the compustion chamber? Either a spray bar or a couple NOS type fogger nozzles? For that matter- just a 25 hp fogger set-up more for the intercooling benefits of NO2 than the added oxygen and fuel (a side benny though!)

tomcat

shifter - thanks for the history lesson on front tunnel flaps. These comments should be added to the Great Moments in Cat History.

If Skater is going more aero, would the difference in performance be seen in the old 32/new 32 comparison? With a pair of 575 SCi the new 32 does about 125 mph. There is an old 32 in Canada with triple 400 HP 2.7L Merc outboards that does 130. It seems as though the new one goes about the same speed with about the same power, but it has to weigh more. Three outboards weigh about 1500 lbs. Two inboard/outboards weigh close to 3000 lbs. Then again the outboard is dragging an extra drive.

Anyone know of an old 32 with inboard power and HP similar to the 575SCi? I know merlin540 has the old Agitator boat, which he said did 107 with a pair of 550 HP small blocks. That's a long way from 125 mph.

cobra marty

Rambunctious--
I have often thought about an automatic drive and trim tabs system. We know where to set them for getting on plane and what is best for say 30 ans 50 and WOT. Why not have this programed in and set according to speed. The only variable is weight which will throw it off. Maybe better would be a 'angle' guage and try to maintain a specific ride angle/level.
How many times we use 2 positions 1) down to get on plane and 2) WOT for speed. Everything in between is testing.

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

i wonder if there would be any advantage in cutting the skeg of the center drive on a boat set up with triples , to reduce drag. or more extreme . . choping the two outside skegs and relying on the center one ( that might be a little too extreme though) . . . the reason i wonder is i notice the fastest cats like the bud boat cut all the skegs and rely on just one rudder. . . .hmmmm . . .just my thoughts . . .this is turn'n out to be a pretty cool thread . . . . .you know what they say . ."necessity is the mother of invention" . . .

cobra marty

On a single, or twinor triple, how about cutting off the skeg and placing a rudder behind the prop but not lower than the prop. It would be mounted to the drive -bolted on like a steering bracket, all stainless, hanging out behind the bravo drive.

shifter

The center rudder has great balance for a boat at high speeds. At low its useless, not enough area for the amount of wetted surface.
Skegs in front of props is not the greatest for a traction limited propellers. The skegs at high speeds tend to make the boat go left to right because of drag . When we did the first drive design of the WSD it was center rudder with drives steering also. IE thrust vectoring. Someday it will catch on the more people get used to seeing rudders.
Another improvement to boats have been cnc molds. I have checked a lot of boats over the years and they were not very straight.
Aero has helped a lot.. a lot. The amount that the boat weighs at speed is negated by lift,cat or vee. Cats are obviously less affected. On one of the boats we ran full and empty, it ran 158 full or empty, the difference was in acceleration. 28 vrs 30 secs from 100 to 150mph. That is 900 liters of diesel.
Set-up and balance are things that have made huge advances props too ask Herring. CNC cool stuff.
We have made a digital light display for the trim and steering indicators. It has been in the Ettore boat for one year for sea trials. So far so good. It should be available soon. We are trying to get a handle on cost . The next step is cnc control of the settings instead of tap tap tap @#$%% I went too far tap tap..... ahh just leave it. Its almost done.
Water injection--- this is turning into the cheating guide.
lots of fun though.
pat W

Ron P

Talk about water injection.

I had a Sonic 24 w/235 Johnrudes that went 64 MPH all the time no matter what. One day it was screaming and I look at the speedo and I'm doing 73. The one motor was at 6000 rpms and the other at 5400 as normal. On the way home the fast motor quite and wouldn't restart. I took it in to the shop and found that I had a leak from the cooling passage into the engine. How many cyclinders could have been effected? Two?

My point is, water injection seemed to work wonders! Can it be controlled and not destroy an engine?

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

if im not mistaken , one of the biggest effects water vapor injection has on an engine is raising compression (due to the non-compresability of water)

i have seen some companies playing around with it in the early 90's but havnt seen anything latley. i does work . not quite sure how easy it is to control though. i think it would not be good for supercharged engines either, with their need for low base compression . . . hate to say it but i think you can still get kits in JC whitney . . . no kid'n . .