Adding a Pad with a notch and steps
 

Thinking about flipping over the little 19 foot hotrod soon .

The bottom is painted and looks like hell and needs to be stripped and regelled ,so as long as we are upside down maybe adding a variable deadrise pad with shingled multiple steps in it.

The bottom of it already has a very soft rounded keel the last couple feet very similar to the 18 Donzi.

Going to raise the X up 2 1/2 as this is as high as I can get with out having to cut the rubrail for the CMIs.

So I could maybe add another 1/2 inch of pad to the bottom and end the pad 6 inches short of the transom giving me a small notch and leaving me with 3 inches less X overall.

But what I thought would be really interesting would be building into the pad multiple small steps maybe like 6 or 7 with a rise of just a 1/4 inch Kinda like the shingles steps they used to do on the old racers of the 20s.

Runnig 58 stock 260 with Alpha . Going to a 325 with raised X hoping for 70.

Shingled pad maybe good for 5 to 8 mph. If it doesn't work could always grind the steps off and go with just the pad

Interesting speed comparison from back in the day and some good reading.http://www.vintageraceboatshop.com/S...HullDesign.htm

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Since you asked, I'll offer one man's opinion. Major boat manufacturers took some pretty sweet handling hulls and ruined them by adding steps back in the early 2000's. It took many, many iterations to stomp out most (but not all) of the step induced handling evils. Meanwhile, many folks got stuck with some pretty nasty handling boats. Oh yea, but the did go fast in a straight line. And all of this was done by supposedly "experienced" hull designers. And you want to try this one on your own?

And so I ask you in my very best Dirty Harry voice, "So kid, are you feeling lucky?"

A little background.

My older brother originally designed and built the boats and it is a good handling boat as it stands other than it can dance a bit on the rounded keel sometimes .

Years ago I had ridden in and raced against the old 21 Scarabs from the 80's that had a pad on them.

They were 3 feet longer and a little heavier but the pad made up for it with lift and less wetted surface so they were subsequently a few mph faster than my 19 with exact 260 Merc power.

The pad was fairly easy to get on and stay on in the Scarab and the ride as far as harshness on big landings was not any different than landing on my rounded keeled boat.

So I don't think the pad is a big risk as the boat you see in the pics is my old boat and the new owner aka Baronmarine on this site added a small delta pad to it with an Arneson and I have ridden in it at 75 and it rides like on rails.

So the only change would be adding a little longer pad and than multiple steps on the pad to aerate it a bit as an experiment.

This would be for straight line speed and you would not attempt a high speed turn just as you would not attempt it in a properly engineered and proven stepped hull

Just throw a bigger engine on it, leave the design stuff to the pros (who's boats still spin out) IMO.

Typical answer .As so many on this site add huge power to either a inefficent hull or a deep drive position.

Takes big bucks to build another 200 horse to get another 10 mph when you could spend your own labor and a bit of materials to improve the efficiency of your running surface and drive depth and achieve the same gain.

To be honest I am not in the least bit a fan of stepped hulls as I had ran a splashed Rybo Runner that became these Parasail boats . It handled so bad I told the manufacturers Rep that if it was my boat I was trying to manufacture and sell that i would Grind it up and scrap it and pretend it never existed. Later on they filled in the step in the hull mold and the boat handled predictably.

It was an early single large step and was so sensitive to trim and weight that if a person walked from the stern to the bow the boat would cavitate and bow steer.

I know Step technology has progressed to multiple small steps since and has came a long way since then.

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You asked right? More power will make you go faster, fact. Home made steps, notch, various hull gizmos might make you go faster, might get you in trouble too, worse yet a passenger.

Don't think it would be any more unsafe than many of the guys on here dumping 5 to 600 horses in place of their old 330 horse in a bow steering , stern lifting propped family boat that was never designed to go over 50 mph..

I have years of seat time in these boats and would not push the speed if the boat felt like it might have a handling problem.

Stripped a Mercruiser tiller arm at 60 mph 30 years ago care not to relive a hard instantaneous hard left as that day ended in.Thank God i was on a small calm lake that day and not on Lake Michigan miles out tearing it up in March as I had been the month before.

No passengers, don't need the company.

As you can see from the previous pics the boat only rides on the last 4 feet and outer foot of the keel area as it is now.

Adding a pad has proven to improve handeling as proven in other pad designs .

So what is the big deal of loosening up some of the surface tension of the pad with very small steps or even a surface such as this?

http://travel.cnn.com/lufthansa-tests-shark-skin-881186

You don't think a large area of the very back of a boat floating on a huge volume of aerated water where all the weight and energy is concentrated is dangerous ?

Kinda like injecting water underneath your front tires of your Corvette at 150 to reduce their friction.
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My object is not to go a 100 mph. But doing 80 as efficient as I can would be nice. Hell if I could achieve that with 325 horse I might be tempted to slap in a 230 horse 305 stock Merc and run 65 all day long too.

Resin and glass are relatively cheap and if you dont like it , grind it off ! Will Smith(Phantom Boats) improved the speed of a Magnum hull without killing the handling ,so if you have the time and ambition , do it. Those Ocean Pro 31's with the step were terrible, We could only make them useable with a 2" drive spacer on the east coast. Good Luck!!

Yea those Ocean Pro's were a trip. Boat would cavitate if someone walked forward so you would naturally trim in to cure it, nope just got worse as the bow buried and created more air under the hull to feed the cavitation.God forbid you get a big gust while flying to the side with a big chute and the boat would practically spinout or you would crash you flyers because you couldn't maintain your 20 mph top speed that the old Seastar 6.9 International Diesels would push ya.

What a bad combination

Worked for this Gentleman back in the 90s, One hell of a guy and builds one hell of a fast strong boat.

Never has been to anything but highschool and couldn't draw much less read a set of engineered plans if he had too, But he has in his favor 1000s of hours running these bad boys and knows what works and what doesn't.

The big joke around the shop was how the big manufactures were trying to satisfy their customers need for speed after Paul's boats blew their doors off and kill them in the Tounaments.

The manufacture would have some big name designers and engineers build a set of mold for their new pig and have it all wrong from what had already been proven out on the water years prior by Paul's boats and the other non College but Schooled by the Sea backyard builders in the area.

http://www.paulmanncustomboats.com/background.php

yep all wood framed built by eye and instinct only. Sheathed in marine plywood and biaxe set in epoxy. Some of the strongest and lightest subsequently efficent and fastest sportfishing boats out there..

These Outerbanks guys building in their backyards Schooled the big manufactures back in the 90s.

What is hard to see in the pics of the big dog on the trailer is the full length outerkeel for tracking in large following seas and also the exaggerated flare of the bow to get it out of the pass and carry the bow thru the huge breakers .
Also the flare quickly dissolves in to a immediate convex in the hull sides about a third of the way back. This doubled the hull strength in a critical area when the boat would fall off a large wave on the quarter.

Back in the days the large manufactures were still building the hull sides with the hollow all the way back. Many an old Bert or Hat separated from the deck after falling on it's side off a wave before they learned this little trick
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You may want to tell that to Steve Stepp after he was the 1st production boat to break a 100 with a pad and notched transom .

And than call Reggie and tell him he had it all wrong when he bought the old Excalibur 31 molds and added a notch and pad and started to Execute his competitors in the quest for speed in the productions area.

Good grief...

They're frickin boat builders, I'm sorry if I missed that part of your experience. If you are so determined why ask? There's more to bottom design than just slopping on some fiberglass, although with these forums so rich in history from accidents in these stepped things maybe there isn't.

Just an idea , something to talk about, something to keep the boards interesting . Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers .Sorry if i did.

Hey...fine by me, messing with something that is borderline to begin with (steps) could be trouble IMO. Enough people getting hurt in these things these days, just don't want to see another one if possible. As you can tell, I'm not the biggest fan of steps.

My thought is simply the boat rides still on the Vee with the pad only doing half of the lifting in the speed range of 45 to 50 which is as fast as i want to go in the rough stuff where handling can change in the blank of an eye these days,
Get in the calm stuff like we have here most of the time and wring it out at 80 in a straight line.

Be nice to cruise at 55-60 at 3500 in a mild SBC too.

Hey me neither ,

Have seen way to many people over their head with horsepower in the 40 years I have been in this sport and to add steps proven or unproven for someone to understand the handeling aspect and consequences is way beyond most.

To be honest when I started getting back into these boats 9 years ago when I happened upon this site and saw all the people that were barrel rolling and getting hurt or killed I was horrified that the manufactures would still offer them on their boats.

Good or bad I just felt they were well beyond the skill and knowledge level of most entry performance boaters that entered back when this hobby exploded again years back.

But unbelievably as the speeds increased I think the statistic's will prove that the fatalities because of rollovers went down thru education from this site and Performance schools such as Tres Martins/

Not to mention enough years have passed that most of the ill handling steps have been committed to the dump or are rotting on some trailer .

Anyone remember Bobby Moore in Miami at the time use to advertise - add a step to your hull. I think back in the day he claimed 21 or 27 mph with his add a step to a Apache hull. I think he is no longer in Miami but might have moved to Missouri currently. I have no experience with add a step after the fact by him or any others. Wonder if anyone had it done and the true results.

Bobby Moore’s Step-Hull Conversion
With the aid of Bobby Moore’s Custom Marine you can join the step-bottom hull revolution without having to sell your existing V-bottom boat. Moore has devised a proven method of attaching a stepped-hull to an older performance boat to achieve faster speeds. Results generally reflect a 6 to 8 mph speed increase, but Moore has seen as much as a 24 mph improvement on an older 41-foot Aronow. It’s a tedious process of removing the engines and turning the boat upside down and then applying a custom-fit balsa step to the hull using fiberglass and epoxy resin with a vacuum bag process. The best results come from boats 38 feet and up that already run 65 mph or better. For a price quote you’ll need to call and describe your present boat’s size and design. Contact Bobby Moore’s Custom Marine, 3016-3030 NE 188th St., N Miami FL 33180; (305) 931-3157.

That's exactly what I was talking about, Can I ask were did you get that info from and I believe Bobby Moore is no longer in Miami , Man I guess I do have a good memory to remember about the Apache except when it comes to spelling, I sometimes can not remember how to spell them..

I bet a pad would do it. The 21 Velocity was one of the faster small boats around even with stock power.

BTW: I did a top end and exhaust on a 20ft boat with 500+hr motor. Did not touch the shortblock. Went from 53/54 stock other than EMI exhaust after playing with many props and etc to a best of 68mph with redoing the top end. Still, stock Alpha. No SS or anything.

I'm mentioning this because you would be starting from a higher MPH and thus you'd probably break 70 with your boat by just doing a top end too.

Something to think about.

I have a 15 year old almost 0 hour 355 built by a known offshore builder here in town. Nothing to crazy and older stock heads with 202s and a shave and some port work. Can't remember the cam but it is .50 lift with a ton of duration so i bought some CMIs years ago too. I am thinking its probably 325 with a stock intake and rejetted Quadrajet- so 65 horse over the stock 260.



I was hoping to see 70 with a 2 1/2 inch raised X and different prop with this motor so an overall gain of 12 mph

The pad is something to do just for an experiment since the boat will be upside down anyways, and I have been thinking about a multi stepped pad for years, actually 25 years long before they were the rage.

What hull were you running and what did you do for cam , heads , intake and carb to get those gains?

Any idea what kinda power you think it made and was the compression all good before you did the upper?

I have kinda lurked on your postings because you are one of the few sbc guys on here.

Just my .02

I have a 89' Powerplay Integra... same hull design as yours I believe. Integra is probably a little heavier considering is a open bow.... But best Ive ever had was 75.4 gps. Has a Alpha SS with a 383 490hp sbc using a 23p mirage plus. But most of the time I get 72-74, the 75 was with without the drive shower and speedo/depth finder handing off the back. At that speed its a handful but one hell of a thrill otherwise. I can cruise all day long at 47-52 at 3300-3850rpm. Ill be trying a 25p this week and might be sending out my 23p to get labbed and get another 2-3mph hopefully.

Ditch the stock quadrajet intake unless it's one of the Bowtie Highrise cast iron Intake.

The list of mods I did is below.
You could run Vortec or RHS or Engine Quest cast iron heads (170-180cc) / Comp XM270HR / and Performer RPM and probably be within 10hp or so of this engine. I used some different from the norm parts just because that's what I do. LOL.

Note: Prices have changed since I installed these.
Note #2: Did not dyno. No reason on a motor like this. Good guess would be 350HP.
Note #3: Did not do compression test. Boat ran as strong as it did when it was new when pulled to do top end.
Note#4: Engine was '91 5.7. Block had provisions for OEM hydraulic roller, but was outfitted from GM/Merc with flat tappet cam.

Carb: BG 650 Vac Sec Marine Sea Demon #1282010VEM (74P/84S 6.5PV/softest Yellow vac secondary spring)
Intake: Weiand #8501 Stealth Air Strike / Was Hard Anodized Locally
Intake Gasket: Fel-pro #1205
Intake Bolts: ARP #434-2101 (stainless 12pt)
Cyl Heads:
Brodix IK180 64cc with w/ Comp >918= beehive springs, retainers, locks, ID locators
Rocker Studs: ARP #134-7101
Guideplates : Comp Cams #4808-8
Cyl Head Bolts: ARP #134-3701 (70 ft/lbs)
Exhaust Gasket: Fel-pro #1404
Head Gasket: Fel-pro #17030 // Head Gasket, Stainless Steel, Composition
Type, Marine, Chevy, 283/ 307/ 327/ 350, Each

Pushrods: Comp Cams #7955-16 Hi-Tech 5/16@ 7.400@
Rockers: Scorpion 1.6 Roller 3/8@ stud
Camshaft: Comp Cams XFI HR #08-466-8 / 268XFI HR-13
268,276 at .006@ / 218, 224 at .050@ / .570@, .565@ with 1.6 / 113LSA / 109ICL
Lifters: GMPP Hyd roller lifter kit (includes dogbones, spider, lifters)
#12371042 List $269.00 Purchase $215.20
Timing Chain: GMPP #12371043 List $60.00 Purchase $48.00
(includes cam both style retainer plates)
T-Cover gasket set Felpro TCS45121
Valve Covers: Proform #141-751 // Tall Black w/red Chevrolet // Baffled
Hold Downs: Proform #141-757 // Black w/red
Fuel Pump: Holley #712-327-11 /// 110GPH , 6.5-8psi, 3/8@ npt inlet/outlet, marine
Oil Filter: Napa Gold (WIX) #1069
Oil Filter Mount /Bypass Eliminator: Canton #22-570
Spark Plugs: NGK BKR7E-11 (V Power) Pre-Gapped at .043@ (1.1mm)

Imnot a boat designer, nor do I play one on TV. These are just logical thoughts and if I am wrong please correct me.

A step works by by aeration. As the water moves from the step aft it creats an area of low pressure which allows air to be introduced. The pad could definitly yeild benefits it set up correctly, raising the X can help. THe shingle steps in the pad... without an air source to fill the low pressure zone, one would think would cause sticktion and actually be slightly detrimental.

Tommy, I've read several of your posts here as well as on a blow boat forum. You obviously have more knowledge and hands on time concerning hulls and designs as 95% of the people on here as evidenced by this thread, myself being in the 95%. So what's the purpose of this thread, seriously? Don't take this the wrong way because I'm not trying to be an azz, just being realistic.

Nuthin taken the wrong way. Just tossin around an idea I've have had for 30 years and never acted on. plus something to talk about

The boat needs a regel on the bottom and a transom and stringers anyways., so just thinking while I am there what I can do to improve the hulls efficiency.that's all.

Got me thinking Phragle.

What if the front of the pad had an Aeration tube feeding it from deck level with an adjustable valve.

Great build and thanks for the specifics., Hope you didn't have to type all of that LOL

Just don't have 3 grand more to put towards the motor right now.If I could spend the 1500 I have to spend for materials for my stringer/transom / bottom regel I would buy some new ARP heads or what you suggested and a new intake to start.

But I have to work with what I have for a next o nuthin budget for now but I appreciate your details in your engine build for future mods.

Well let me know if you need a project, I'll bring my angler cc down for stringers and a transom. It's all torn out, just ready for the install.

Thanks but no thanks LOL I have too many projects and not enough Dough as it is.
If you got it all ripped out and grinded you are 70 percent of the way there.

Redoing the stringers and transom is easy as 123 especially with Glassdaves threads and advice for you to follow.

I don't mind the glassinf one bit but a whole day of being in a tyvec suit grinding is waiting for the weather to cool off here in SW Florida . Thinking about the 1st cold snap we get like in Nov or December.

Good luck with your project.

PS They seem a little uptight on that design forum , seems a lot more book smarts than doing smarts there . Though I really do enjoy the input that some of the designer builders are taking the time to do like Richard Woods.

What you got going with all those boats are you trying to start your own Naval Fleet?

Raise the X and add a small pad IMO.. The steps or notch is too much, esp on a boat that is that small. With enough power it will hang it self in the air..


John jr

Yup. Many of these small boats that run good even with stock power, pick up 5-7mph by raising X or getting an Alpha SS.

Some smaller boats have no room to raise the outdrive and/or engine so they must be in search of an SS.

The boat I reference witrh the above motor build has a lower propshaft depth of 7+" below bottom of back of boat.
That is deep and obviously drags it's azz ! Should have an SS on it by September. We'll see what happens.

Nah, using two on a weekly basis and working on the other two. The Tahiti jet, (1969), is a bone stock original that I bought from the original owner three years ago, original interior, carpet, even down to the tires on the trailer. It has a L-88 427 in it installed for Tahiti by Aero Marine when new. The Raysoncraft's original tri power Pontiac is at the machine shop. It's a 1962 with a pretty extenesive racing history, mostly taking place at Parker. All it needs is the motor and it's done. The Angler CC is completely apart and I've procrastinated for over a year as I've never done the transom/stringer job. Was originally going to do the pour in transom buy changed my mind. I'll have to look up Glassdaves threads on that. I enjoy a reading on the design forum, some really good stuff on there. Uptight is a pretty conservative description of some on there but I still enjoy reading. I've noticed you hold your own with them however and you couldn't BS that bunch.

Yea I took the time a few weeks ago to take an exact level measurement and it is set at dead stock depth which is if i remember is 7 1/4 or 7 3/4. Anyways I guess a SS is 3 inches shorter according to the guys on Donzi.net.

I can get 2 1/2 before my CMI's will cut into the rubrail and that does not leave me room for exhaust trim rings

WOW 2 Cool boats . Any pics of them would love to see them . Offshore ,- Jet - V-Drives anything old I have a soft spot for

I'll take some pics, need some anyway just to have. I like the old stuff too. The jet really is a unique piece just because of it's originality and low time. Bought it on Ebay sight unseen and it turned out to be nicer than described. I feel really fortunate to own it.

I dont think the aeration is going to do much, getting the pad angle and size right is probably more important, Im also thinking about the Thomas's pantera thread, I believe he lengthened the inner strakes giving the boat a little more lift aft. That might help stability a bit too because if you get to much boat out of the water its liable too become a chine walking biotch.
Aerating the what little contact area on the pad there is might also make it like trying to balance on marbles... just random thoughts.

I'm all for adding the pad. Not sure about the steps though

Never know if you don't try I guess.

Be nice to have a valve and be able to gradually introduce some air under the pad as you go to feel the affects.

From what I have seen adding length to the inner strakes seems to bury the bow on most of the threads i have read where they have done the mod.. The boat has a nice stance and carries the bow real nice with only a little positive trim now.

So if I can replicate the surface between the bow and the stern as it is riding on now but bump it down an inch and flatten into a pad I hope to have the fore to aft running attitude it had stay the same . Good chance the stern is going to have soo much more lift on the pad that the bow will come down significantly though i think ... Hate to lose all that bow lift.

What do you think ? Boat doesn't have to bad of stance at 58 with little trim for being designed and built by a 18 year old kid with no former training.


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