How's this going?

It's moving along. I should hopefully be starting final assembly with lots of photos in the next week or two. Scheduled to be on the dyno with it May 4.

so this new 29 will do the 2018 Poker run tour...... I thought this was a dealer/demo boat to help get Lavey back out there... Missing the biggest west coast event and the Havasu boat show this year is too bad....Most of their boats (98%) were built for that crowd....
Almost at 12 months now....so 18 month build? gonna scare more people then excite. I just wanna see Lavey do well is all.

It was never intended to run west-coast events. We are still planning on running the East coast events out of New York and the LOTO shootout this year but as every single piece in this thing is custom it takes time. Even the interior is custom from the standard Laveycraft interior which is what we are currently waiting on.

Some of these custom parts took a long time to get done, 6 to 8 months from start to completion. We all are behind including me. Normally our boating season starts May 1 for the family rec boaters, half of the wake boarders and ski boats. This year it started 1st week of Feb because its so warm here. We have had 90's and most of the time 80 and above for 2 months straight.

Interior design has been hard to detail out and I probably have held it up for about 4 weeks for being behind.

Interior and outdrive as those 2 set ups have been the hardest to move forward with.

Also we never planned any westcoast events and that has been posted up here. Just saying on my end -

Who on the westcoast has not heard of Lavey Craft but head east and on the eastcoast who has heard of Lavey Craft ? A lot of North easterners have not in that neck of the woods and for the ones that have heard of Lavey Craft, I bet many have not seen one in person.

Home base for the boat is in New York. - they have a lot of Poker Runs going on in the Northeast plus Sportboat V hulls are still somewhat popular.

A question mark might be LHC street party but again its doubtful the 29 will make it there.

Lots of custom pieces to this baby. You can come by the shop anytime and check it out.

Interior wise BUP didnt want to build a new boat that looked like the 10 year old version of prior ones. Lots of agonizing over schemes.

Laveys just fine - as a matter if fact I would wager better than ever due to landing a rather large contract.

You'll see it finish up in real time as her parts come in, gonna be glorious

UD

Post pics of the custom pieces!

go back to page 23 you can see some. The valve covers (the top ones) have valve spring oilers installed as well. We are using piston oilers also. The Hillborn and there is a lot more. The heads are done now to.

What a great build - thanks for sharing it. Love the boat as well - awesome color scheme. Some thoughts, and sorry this got so long...

A lot of effort is going into engine reliability, but unfortunately there are not many options for "matched" drive reliability. Two things kill over powered drives - over acceleration and the "slip and grab" of the prop, both putting pressure on the tiny little areas of gear tooth to gear tooth contact. As many will attest, it seems a drive can be over powered for quite along time with super gentle acceleration, and creaping up on top speed as slowly as possible, crazy frequent oil changes, etc etc. The best throttleman in the world can of course take care of both issues when waves are non existent, or spaced far part. But, when the waves are close enough together, and the troughs deep enough, and the boat is going fast enough to span those waves, without lifting or jumping, just "riding on top" as we call it, the props will grab air, then water, and there is nothing the best throttleman in the world can do about it, except slow down to cruiser speed, and let someone else drive the boat 30mph home . The faster the boat, and the longer the boat, as well as the higher the X-dimension - something made popular by the chase for less drag, more top speed, etc. - the more easily this is encountered. This build has so many reliability steps being taken for the engine like piston squirters, spring oilers, fuel injection with 8 O2 sensors, closed cooling, fuel cooling, large oil capacity and coolers - all things not available 30 years ago. The drive guardian is the ONLY advancement in the last 30 years that has come along to really address the drive issue, other than maybe dry sump of the sixes. Yes, the bravos are reconfigured to eliminate the weak cone clutch setup (volvo's design from the late 60's early 70s) using a trans, but gear size and tooth surface area is still about the same on the lowers. Otherwise the only advancements have been slightly stronger drives, that have then been quickly canceled out by more affordable, more powerful engines. The splitter to two drives is an interesting solution, and has been done on a 27/28 ft boat with massive torque from a Merlin rolls Royce aircraft engine, pushing two arneson #6's drives - never been able to get performance info on it.

I have always been interested in larger single engine offshore style boats, because I can't afford twins, and can't stand tight engine compartments (since I do all my own work). I have watched what has been built over the last 30 years, and more importantly what has been for sale in that category - and one thing I have noticed, is that although there are plenty of people out there who will say "I, or so and so" had X amount of horsepower in front of such and such a drive for Y amount of hours, there never seems to be a high powered single engine boat for sale with more than 40-50 hours on the drive, lol.... Same goes for high powered twins actually. Fastest guy around me went to 1,000hp in his F1 29' Warlock with a bravo based drive, having crept up over the years from an hp500, to 700hp, and finally to 1,000. Used to see him out all the time at 500, only 2 or 3 times a summer at 700, and I've yet to see him out with his 115mph 1,000hp, which he went to 5-6-8 years ago? I've lost track now. He's not married and has no kids, so that's not it, lol.

Even twins are always for sale with one or both drives "fresh". So that amount of power? And be able to enjoy the boat, without being reckless? And not on a river or smaller lake? Only choice I would consider is a #6 drive, and a guardian, or research an arneson setup. These things are supposed to be fun. If the motor makes 900hp, but only 600 of it is ever used, then it really only has a 600hp motor, or setup.

Looking forward to watching and learning on this build, as I put together my own mild tunnel ram budget version at 572ci/700hp with huber 1350 and rebuilt Konrad drive (lasted 430 hours at barely 600hp, with 200 hour oil change interval, and prop only 1.5" up from stock TRS depth). 

I'm in Ft Worth also BUP. I'd like to run with ya up at texoma when you get done. Lots of room to stretch the legs on Tex.