when howard arneson built a 32 skater with a single turbine he built a centerpod on the boat. I see no way it would work with out one. If I remember correctly his boat ran around 130 with a single geT58 . We built a 38 cougar with twin T58 using howards mounts, gear box ass. mounts, and advice from Howard and Ric. You should call them. The project we did was a lot more work then we thought it would be. That set up is much longer then a gas motor. but much lighter. Good luck
Michael

I've had a couple chris cats and like I said, they dont have a center pod. There is a slight drop in the tunnel that is a shallow V. When the boat's on the trailer the bunks ride in the 2 flat areas at each side of the center section. These are only a couple inches deep at the transom. I generally consider a center pod as a running surface while on plane.
It's difficult to tell if that area was built up on your cat or just added to at the transom. Keep in mind that the chris cats have a fairly deep tunnel. That means a drive would have to stick down fairly far to get the right drive height relative to the water line while on plane. I'm not sure a SSM VI would reach from the crank ceneter line. The engine would have to be mounted fairy high in the hull for oil pan clearance.
I would think a surface drive would be out of the question without building a deep center pod that would be a running surface. The geometry would be way off without it.
Maybe you should reconsider or find a warlock or eliminator.
Gary

gary, thank you for the input. if a center pod is a running surface then it does not have one for sure. it does hand down 4 or 5 inches from the rest of the tunnel so it will help with how kow i can mount my gimble. i talked to rick at arneson today he gave me some idea's. My other option is to just go with 2 turbines and run surface drives off of each sponson. i have 2 of them but really did not want to get into all the extra money in building a twin turbine boat. i guess i will just see. this is more of a fun learning project than anything. i am not going to race this boat. i just thought it would be fun to have a turbine cat. As far as mounting hight goes. the turbines are only 48" long and 24 inches in diameter at the largest point, there is no oil pan so i really have no issue with mounting them low enough.

Sorry, now I remember you were speaking of a turbine.
How about an output splitter to 2 surface drives. Turbine in the center, splits to 2 outputs. Drop boxes on the surface drives should get them to the right level in each sponson. I posted a link earlier in this thread for a turbine splitterbox and there's another thread on diesel splitterboxes.
I've been considering a similar project with a small allison turbine to get a little experience. Another idea that came to me was to fabricate an upside down V shaped splitterbox using kevlar belts to drive 2 output shafts. Flash Gordon uses a belt drive system on his turbine boat. Gear reduduction could be accomplished using the pulleys. Outputs from the splitterbox could be mated to 2 crashboxes for shifing. The turbine output shaft brake mechanism is available from Nye. Crash boxes connect to the surface drive input shaft.
What do you think?
Gary

Gary, i did check out that sight. Thank you for the info. If i do go all the way and run 2 surface drives and 2 drop boxes off of each of the sponsons i am just going to use both turbines i have. The room is there if i want to do it. The problem is that i am doing this project for fun and i am worried if i put all this money into using both turbines, 2 surface drives, not to mention 2 of everything else it will add like 30k to my "fun" project. If i sell the spare turbine i have it is worth like 10k comp. And i was going to put that money towards my drive system. I only have like 4 months of summer here and i do not know if i am willing to drop another 30k on this project. One way or another i will figure out how to make it work. The boat will still run well into the triple digits with a single turbine. I just need to get as many ideas from as many people out there and do a little trial and error. I know a guy who runs a 28 cat with a single center drive. And cobra Marty runs a 30 cat with single drive. Any ideas please keep them coming guys.