Offshoreonly.com - Plum Loco Restoration

I have finally been able to finish the restoration of Plum Loco. There has been so much to do and not enough time. Although it has been a long road, everything has turned out very well. A little history about the boat. Although I am friends with the original owner, I purchased it from another owner in approx 2005. It originally had a Nascar small block producing about 700hp or so, turning over 8,000 rpm. The original owner said yesterday that they were able to win the kilo record with 98.6 mph and on the next pass another boat adjusted the drive height and ran 101. The next owner used a supercharged GM small block and it ran in the mid 80s. It had a very mild 454 in it when I purchased it. I upgraded the engine to a 520 stroker which ended up toasting two pistons when the fuel pump went bad. The boat was a custom setup from Pantera with the bulkhead moved forward. It had some stress cracks around the attachment points for the bulkhead and the floor was becoming weak. I took the boat to Jo and Pepe at the Pantera factory so they could fix it. They cut out the bulkhead and floor and strengthened everything, they also made a new custom hatch since the exhaust now runs through the transom. They did a very good job with the work and made it much stronger. The years of racing just took a toll on it in a few places, the hull was great though. I decided at that point to completely redo most everything. I had it custom painted, new seats, stand-up / sit-down bolsters, new Livorsi controls and gauges. I had a new 509ci built with all forged internals and Merlin heads, although was originally going with a twin turbo EFI setup that I had, but decided to stick with the more reliable and simple setup. I was able to take it for a test run today and it blew the distributor gear, which is one of the only parts that I had not replaced. I have been running that distributor for almost 10 years, so I am not surprised. Hopefully I can get it back out soon and finish breaking it in.

Scott Gary
Panama City, FL

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