Tonto

thedonz,
Like everyone else said, maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. I just had Tommy @ CHIEF ENGINES build me a pair of 900-950's @ 600+ cu.in. @ 5lbs of boost. Since I was starting from scratch, we went with big inches and low boost for longevity and they idle like a HP500. Should see 400 to 500 hours between rebuilds the way that I drive the boat, cuising at 3500 rpms 99% of the time.

Like others have said, find out as much history on the engines as possible. 10 hours is just one GOOD weekend, without hour meters you really don't realize how fast the time adds up. Find out what kind of rocker arms are in them, lifters, compression ratio, valve seat spring pressure, etc. Find out how much total time is on the superchargers, Marv @ THE BLOWER SHOP says about 300 hrs between rebuilds.

There is alot to consider when buying a boat with this kind of power...................
But when those blowers are singing and you're flying off of waves, there is no better feeling in the world, just ask Nauti Kitty, he IS addicted.

Good luck in your venture and happy sailing (through the air)

Robert

thedonz

Robert,

Thanks for your thoughts. Love your boat, is Tonto at Chief now? I saw a beautiful Apache in there about two weeks ago.....only saw the front so couldn't see the paint scheme in the rear....was that Tonto? I plan on doing most of my running between 3,500-4,000 rpm........hope I can get that many hours out of them. Did you go solid lifters? These engines have solid lifters. I'll detune them after a few months time.

Frank

Tonto

Frank
No, Tommy likes to use hydraulic roller lifters in his engines. With the large cubic inch engine, you don't have to run as an aggressive cam shaft. My old engines had solid flat tappet lifters in them and even at 130+ hrs they were still at .020 lash.

Yes that could have been my boat. I left Tommy's with it on Sun. the 18th to bring it back up here to Ga.

Robert