bck

Might want to consider deleting this thread and starting a new one with the builders name right in the title so anyone with experience with him sees it right away and knows what you want. Of the people who have replied no one really seems to have heard of him which in itself might be telling. Try asking on Fbook also.

Fasterboatman

Interesting! I look forward to what you post. But I too worry about the lack of resources to maintain such engines. We are planning to do the "Great Loop", or at least part of it. Having reliable engines is key, but also having engines that can be easily serviced is important too. V-10s would be very cool indeed though!

Fasterboatman

That sounds like a good idea. -j

Fasterboatman

Nope. Just trying to get some facts. I like working with validated and researched facts. I am also wary of the adage you get what you pay for. I have relied on that before, but still got ripped by someone with "a great reputation". If someone can prove their work and their product, then in my mind, that beats reputation hands down. SO Im looking for proof of this guys work. That all. -j

Fasterboatman

Hi OSO,

It has been sometime since I have asked or added anything on this thread. All of your input was very helpful. I did go with the Skip White engines, and so far the build quality has been great. Many thanks to John M for his patience and his excellent advice on everything!

But.....

I can tell you that I have had all kinds of issues with this project, but all of them are related to the rigger I have been using. I guy with a great rep, a guy with years of experience, a guy that many recomended. Crewed on offshore teams in the past. And he is not what he said he was. I have lawyer involvement now, and after two years of the boat on the hard, I finally have it back in the water. I have to finish it still myself. But the engines, they are sound thus far. Still working a break in cycle, and only have about 4 hours the engines, but everything seems to be moving forward finally. I have paid this person many thousands of dollars to remove my old engines and drive and replace them with all new. I provided the new everything. But after 12 months of effort, this person had only succeeded in installing the drives and engines but absolutely nothing else. He did not even bolt the engines to the mounts. Just set them there and called it done. This person "lost" parts, sold some of my parts to others, and then asked me to replace those parts. Shift plates, tie bars, etc. I actually know the guy he sold my tie bar to.

Once I am able to do so, I will let everyone know who this north Texas, Lake Texoma, rigger is. Until then, dont trust anyone with the initials of LD and is working at the largest Marina at lake Texoma. Just saying.

Myself with the help of friends finished most of what LD would not finish. Now in stark contrast, the second rigger, from Plano Marine at Highport, was able to finish everything we could not with 2 days of effort. That is why it is now back in the water. LD may have taken my money, but it was someone else who finished the work, and got it done. Kudos to those at Plano Marine that do not have the initials of LD. You can trust Greg Ray at Plano Marine, and i wholeheartedly endorse his customer service and the work ethic of his team that do not have the stated initials.

Once I get the break-in cycles completed, I will post results. But for now: A pair of matched Skip White 572s. At 4800RMP 655 hp 702 tq. The math says 54-58mph with a 21p 4 blade, but this is just a place to start. The drives are a bravo XZ, with 1.5 ratio. The boat weighs just a hair below 18,000 lbs. This is an 47' Wellcraft Excalibur that runs really fast for a large cruiser. The old engines(8.1 425hp mags) were able to push the hull to 48mph when new. When I replaced them, the engines could only muster 35mph at 3800 rpm(wot).

Cheers,

-j

cdaniel525

iTrader: (1)

Any update on the Skip White engines?

delsol

Where's the post about upgrading the Bravo drives to handle 700 ft lbs in a 18k boat?? Should be coming up i would think....

Bentwings

Ok I’m old and been around the lake too many times LOL. back to alcohol FUNNY CARS

way back when the NHRA dropped top gas drawers we switched to the new bb/ alcohol funny cars. We built a hole hole new car engine transmission . Not many had run well in our area and I really did not have good contact other than local top fuel guys. We got a lot of used parts and I did a lot of machine work for them . I was also going to engineering school so busy schedual. We had a brand new 8-7- blower and the first night out had low et and high mph ofvthe circuit we had joined won the event That was the beginning of a 5?year run of weekly and twice a week runs losing onyb1 round due to breakage and money in the bank at the end of the seasons. We had reached about the limit of the 87-1 and began looking at the new 10-71 that hat had just come out. A local machine shop that did what we didn’t have equipment for got talking one day about building a 10 -71 or of a couple blowers by cutting extension rotors making a longer through shaft for the rotors and machining for a support bearing in the joint to help prevent rotor flex I was so busy with school an I had just passed my tool maker certification exam so I was really out of time. So to get to my real question “ how were the first of the longer blowers made ? I was well aware that cnc was the wave ofvthe future I was deep into advanced cad by that time but the shop at school onl had a primitive cnc lathe and an old black perforated tape cnc mil I learned to program both as the cam programs were just coming out. I did design a longer high helix rotor but I no easy way to make them except send them out. This was very expensive back then. So was the idea of cutting rotors splicing them with longer through shafts and making very special end plates something that was done as a stop gap deal until machining could catch up?” Our go to shop never finished our proto type. I was aWw 2 buff then too so I studied a lot of how the big fighter and bomber engines were supercharged. The Germans did a huge amount of boost and methanol research as they had very poor gas with refineries bombed to bits . The USA came up with 150 octane gas plus adding water alcohol to it so boosts were pretty substantial in these big engines multi speed and compounded supercharging was used for war emergency power. I used a lot of this information to set up our first race engine and it worked eventually we had to over drive the blower to the point where it lost efficiency by some careful pressure measurements I also found the triangular opening helped distribute the boost better other found this too on the west coast so it became retry standard. There were no onboard computers back then and just creating a timing system to operate the air shifted trans was a project it did work and followed the theory o getting max boost as fast as possible for first an second gear then really lean it bourbon the top end as there was not much air flow. We had 3 high speed lean outs plus a pump sizer circuit. Even reading spark plugs could creat a healthy debate we only nicked one piston during this time that one I fixed with a new ring and good honing on the cylinder So over all it was a good run as we say in sports. But back to my main question . We’re the new longer blower hi Breda as I noted or were the rotor dimly cnc machines from billits with fancy end plates ? We were all set to get a new 10-71 or larger but lives changed and arinecengines soni hsd mwe left the race game.to main rain our lives and kids . As for boats I got the 34 foot cruiser with twin 454 engines so I had my twin. My dog and I lived on throubtwo minnesota winters down on the mission river. Cold an icy. You have to be hard core to live on the misss. In the winter. I was a swimmer from jr h school through two years if college soI knew my way around water and cold water training both in military and college life saving my dog fell in 40 degree water andvthectrainingvreally paid off struggling victim rescue is ver dangerous by itself but cold water rescue is worse. My neighbor across the pier fell in abou two days after my dog andvibhadcto go in and help him try swimming with full winter clothing on in the summer some time addin icy wart I’d extremely dangerous once you are out there is still plenty of danger from the cold every body survived ok but I was thankful I had some idea of what to do.

Bentwings

. I’m a super charger guy so I’d spend probably more on a blower than anyting else if you have a good engine with about 9:1?or less I’d even skip the cam cams really can kill the bottom end if not chosen correctly and not operated in optimum range. Blowers can easily make up for this marine gas here is 91-93 octane an non oxy so very littl moisture problem you still get moisture in the tank vents especially at nigh when the due comes out a spring tank pump out or drain is best and always carry double the amount of filters youbhave fix thing so you can change filter quickly even in a down pour or rough water carry at least two filter tools one always seems to end up in the bilge Blower can have doe really nice I water cooled intercoolers they are speedy but boat stuff is anyways there are some really nice water alcohol injectors that aren’t too expensive I made my own for my street rods In my mind these are necessity on super charged engines just be mindful of the tanks on them I exclusively use Holley or quick fuel carbs an have air fuel ratio gages on them the onl thing you need to be carefull of in stalling these is putting the O 2 sensor well above any water going into the exhaust system the sensors will fail if they get wet. But they are a dead sure way to make carb tuning perfect a hand full of carb jets and destructors is all you need. Approved flame arrestors be sure all you under deck safety equipment is in good order many older boats have halon fire systems that can no longer be refilled or serviced so check this too . There was a big fire down on the marina last year caused by not airing out the bilges before starting engines I YHINK 5 boats were damaged just up the line from me . I had a stroke so I’m not supposed to drive or go boating any more. At least I got a good deal selling my boat quickly.

Fasterboatman

Thanks for the feedback, I did go with the Skip White 572s, with a cam for low and mid-range. 625hp at 4500 and 700tq at same. Target rpm is 4500, cruise range is 3200-4000, which is 356-516hp; 604-676tq across that range. Ran great with b3s, but as many predicted, tore them up a bit. putting finishing touched on Arnesons surface drives. Looking for trials around July 4th. Math says best case 70mph, I predict about 60ish. With the sock b3, and 496s, 47mph was the best I ever got. With the 572s (detuned a bit on timing), 57mph at 5100 rpm. I kept the rev limiter at 5100, and the timing at 31 deg. Compression in 9.1:1, but big heads and a cam for big low end makes it run great even at lower RPMs. The dyno runs for the 668 hp numbers was at 34 deg on 91 pump. Skip did run race gas at 36 deg, and got a bit more, but Im going to run 91 octane, and probably 32-34 on timing.