The initial question was whether the 260's have hook intentionally built in, which they should not. Hook is a gradual rounding. But the intial post was probably refering to the built in Wedge on some (or all perhaps) of these boats. Assuming the intial post was interested in all types of stern lifting hull designs, we have been debating whether all of them have this or not.

Since no one has yet to post pics of a newer 260 hull from the outer strakes to the chines, we are at an impass and have no conclusions

It would be real interesting to see and hear of someone without the wedges. And more so to ride in one without to really see what the difference is . Or for that matter if someone else has already done so.

bcarpman, any idea on cost for the removal of the wedges? Also any idea as of the hull thickness and the make up of the hull bottom in that area as to how much material is there?
I'm wondering if the wedges are all glass or if they are balsa?

Same here. I was using the wrong terminology. In any event, every 260 I have looked at, regardless of year, had the wedge between the chine and the outermost strake. The 290's I have looked at also have it.

They are on the hull to minimize porpoising.

They are in the mold so every hull out of that mold has them unless they were specifically ground off after the boat was removed from the mold.

It is possible to grind them off but it is not worth it.

Marc

Marc, So are you aware of any hulls making it out of the factory without them?? And by the way what is the correct verbiage for these so called wedges?

We always referred to them as shingles.

As a rule no customer or dealer boats left the factory with them ground off.

I think there may have been an employee boat or two that had been modified but I can't say for sure.

If you grind them off they don't improve your speed, they just allow the hull to porpoise so you end up dropping your tab just a bit to eliminate the porpoise.

Nothing gained except the possibility of blisters due to gel work below the waterline.

Good to know. What the heck you guys a bunch of ex-roofers??:D

No roofers involved...

I don't know where the term came from but when we would add them to a hull in testing it looked like a wood shingle (like a cedar roof shingle).

The guy that used to work at the Powerquest factory who contacted me after a long ago similar thread (and now does hull work on his own), said he could do the work along with a full hull blueprinting for $5K. I was not nor am interested in putting that kind of money into this boat. However, since I consider this boat to be my starter boat and mainly an experiment to keep me from making mistakes on future boats, I'm willing to experiment myself.

The wedges are not all fiberglass, however the top layer above the core is flat with the hull, so I will have to cut out the bottom layer of fiberglass completely, but by using proper techniques (I've done lots of high performance composite work), along with using epoxy and kevlar for the layup, I feel the resulting work will be plenty strong.

The guy I talked to was an ex powerquest employee who was not a board member, but reached me through a relative who is a member of the board. For some reason I cannot find his contact info anymore which is very unusual for me, and his PM's were long deleted off the system. Do you have any idea who this would have been, and why he would have completely different info? From his voice on the phone, he sounded like an older gentleman and certainly seemed to know his stuff.

An 1/8 inch hook in the bottom of any other boat will kill top speed. I can't see how a 3/4 inch wedge would do nothing? Also, if they are doing anything to prevent porpoising, then by that fact alone, they must be in the water and exerting stern lift. It just can't work any other way.

One thing we may be forgetting: If you have experience with stock 260's with 330hp, and removal of the wedges made no difference at the 54mph top speed of that stock boat, that fact does not mean it would have no effect on the top speed of a 600hp boat.

When I first started experimenting with this boat, I ran the stock figures through hull constant calculations and came up with a hull constant of 224 which seems right for a conventional v-hull designed for comfort not top speed. As I have progressively stepped up in HP, the calculated hull constant keeps dropping (had fallen to 207 before the 2in shorty drive). This is something that should not happen unless the hull is doing something really funky as speed increases (hull constant by definition should be a constant).

My theory is that if the factory had been building 257's with HP500's they would have seen a difference with the wedges removed.

Again, I guess we'll see this spring. I'm not one to try to hide my mistakes, so I will report back.

bcarpman,

Not sure who that would have been that you talked to...maybe Lou Downing? I worked there until 2000 so it could have been someone who worked there after I was gone.

As to why he had different info - not sure but there is a chance the factory modified the hull mold to remove the shingles (after I left the company).

I worked directly for Kevin Hirdes and was directly responsible for testing and development for about 4 years. I tested more boats between 1994 and 2000 than anyone else at the company, including Kevin. I was involved with all the step bottoms that came to market prior to 2000 as well as the 300 (although that was not complete when I left and was changed after I was gone).

A hook in the wrong location on a hull bottom will kill top speed but a hook in the proper location will not kill your top speed and can improve the performance of a boat that tends to porpoise. The hook on the 260 is out far enough from the keel that it has minimal contact with "solid" water when running near the upper end of the speed range. And you might be surprised what impact just the spray hitting the hook has on the performance of that hull.

You are right that hull bottoms will react differently with different horsepower. The factory did not install 600hp engines in that hull. So what you are experiencing with that hp is likely different than what we experienced in our testing. Max hp from the factory was HP500 (470 at the prop). We did most with 7.4 (300-330hp) and 454 (385hp) and some with 502s (415hp). Top speed was low/mid 60's with the 502. So you are going to see different results than the factory would have.

Have you already ground off those areas on your hull? Did you grind through the glass and into putty?

Marc

Marc, What was the performance numbers on the HP500 in the 26? Can't say I've ever seen nor heard of factory power that large in this model. I'm assuming due to cost not many rolled out the door.

Marc,

It's really unlike me to have lost that individuals number. He told me he had blueprinted several 257 hulls over the years, and that removal of the "shingle" in high power applications resulted in at least 5mph if not more. I don't recall the entire conversation, but I do recall that he seemed to know so much about the hull going way back to intial mold developement, and minor changes over the years, that if he wasn't a long time Powerquest employee with first hand knowledge of that boat then he was a really good BS'r. Not that that is impossible, but as an engineer myself, I'm usually hard to BS on technical stuff.

I have not started the work yet. I drilled a small test hole in 1/8in increments to see how deep each part of the hull was. I know I will have to go into the core to remove the shingles, but the core in that area is very thick at that point, and I will not be going near the top layer of fiberglass.

I am getting the gantry from a friend this week, and will rotate the boat onto one side of the V to do the work on the other side.

I am not concerned with the porpoising. I have 22 inch trim tabs that are not flush with the hull. Worst case senerio, I end up gaining nothing and having to run a little tab, which should still be more efficient than the shingles since only the tip of the tab far out off the back of the boat will have to touch the water.

If you have any thoughts or warnings on the process, I'd love any advice. I may not know what results I'm going to get, but if I'm missing something with the actual hull construction that's going to mess me up, let me know.

Any other thoughts on why this boat would want to bury the bow even with all that power trying to lift it up? No amount of positive trim will loosen up the front.

I'll take measurements to see if there is any hook, but from my current view, the only other thing I can see is that the center strakes run further back than most boats.

I'd love to hear any data on that. I've never seen a 257/260 with an HP500 from the factory.

Boating Magazine did a comparison test in 2003 on 7 comparible boats in that size range. Powerquest was the only manufacturer that didn't send at least a 415hp 502 Mag. They sent a 385hp 454 Mag and it only ran 59mph: 7 to 20mph slower than the other boats in the test.

This summer I was running 540hp with the standard depth prop (propshaft 8.25 inches below the hull) and could only get 64mph. With the shorty drive (6.25inches propshaft to hull) and some engine intake work I managed to get 69.5mph.

[QUOTE=bcarpman;2721437]I'd love to hear any data on that. I've never seen a 257/260 with an HP500 from the factory.

We didn't sell many - I can only recall one.

It was a long time ago - I think 95 or 96 a guy put a 540 Bulldog in a 260. It didn't perform as well as expected on top end speed. I think it was 65 or 66 - certainly not worth the money to upgrade to any HP motor. The boat went to a customer in Texas who custom ordered the boat.

That is why most of them left the factory with a 454 or 502 Mag MPI.

bcarpman,

What year is your boat?

I did not work in manufacturing but I knew the layup schedule pretty well. Changes were made from time to time so you may encounter something different but what you should find as you grind away the material is quite a bit of glass, then putty, then balsa. I would be surprised if you hit balsa but you might.

Once you've got it ground completely off, as long as you reglass everything really good you shouldn't have any problems unless you leave your boat in the water for extended periods - then you'll likely get blistering around the area you repaired. But those will go away as soon as the boat is out of the water for a while.

Regarding the guy at PQ - are you sure he was at PQ and not one of PQ's subs? There was an older guy named Ernie who used to do a lot of work on customer boats and had done extensive bottom work for the factory over several years. He and his son Martin worked together at their fiberglass shop call Bowkers Fiberglass.

The boat is a very good condition '93

I was wondering what the drill was hitting right under the fiberglass. It didn't seem like any core material I was familiar with. I guess they must have laid the first fiberglass, then leveled the shingle area out with the putty, then but the balsa in then the top fiberglass. What should happen is that I should end up sanding right to the balsa and not into it.

My intent is to blueprint the entire bottom (level everything out, remove any hook, sharpen strakes and transom, maybe shorten center strakes). Any thoughts on shortening the center strakes. On this boat they go about 2 feet further towards the transom than on other boats. Since I already have far too much stern lift, I'm figuring that should help.

After everything is perfect I'm going to spray the entire bottom with 4 coats of Interlux Bottom Epoxy. From what I'm told this should protect the entire bottom better than the original gel (epoxy does not absorb water)

Those names sound familiar, as does the shop. That's probably him.

So that means I may already have the worlds fastest PQ 257/260? A dubious honor at best :)

yes, I realize my experiment is a little out there. I should just buy another boat, right. But I do really like this boat and if I just bought another boat I wouldn't learn anything.

I don't recall ever having the strakes cut shorter on a 260 to see how the hull would perform. Maybe someone else has done that and can comment.

The strakes provide stabilization as well as lift so if you do cut them off be prepared for the boat to possibly get a little squirrely at top end. Not sure if it will but you never know.

We ran the 300 hull without any strakes on the back end and that thing was like one of those round convex snow sleds - it was all over the place.

If you do cut, remember it is a lot easier to remove the strakes than to put them back on so if you do cut them off use a die grinder and cut them as close to the hull bottom as you can, and cut in as deep as possible (parallel with the hull bottom of course). Cut all the way around the section you want to remove, then if you end up prying them off the bottom, they should come off in one piece and you can put them back on if needed. The strakes are filled with putty so once you get through the glass you will be into putty.

Also, if you can, cut a section off and go test to see how you like it. Then you can decide if you want to cut off more or not.

I think you will like the results of sharpening all the edges on the strakes and transom. Every boat that we did that to always felt like it handled better and sometimes it would result in more speed too.

Bcarpman, What ever you do please follow up with photo's and results. This is certainly becoming one of the more interesting threads on the PQ forum.

Marc, Whats your thoughts on the 260 hull? Is there some reason its so tuff to obtain any really good mph gains?
Ride quality as you know is great and it's a boat anyone can drive, it just seems other boats of comparable size are faster with the same power. Just seems there should be something there to work with.

Yes, absolutely.

One thing to look at is the depth of the prop. I don't know if PQ raised the x-dim in the years since my boat was made, but if they hadn't that is one big area. You used to have to run the prop deep with the props that were available at the time. Not so now. I picked up 5mph by raising the prop 2 inches (although it does not plane as well as before) and the 6.25 inches propshaft to hull is still pretty deep, leading me to believe there is more to be gained.

Of course it's still a good 8mph slower than a comparable v-hull with similar power, so there's obviously still something else.

Whats the cost of a shorty drive?

I've seen the IMCO shorty lowers for $2000 used. I picked up an entire used drive with an imco shorty for $3000. The seller said the entier drive was built up as an imco extreme not many hours ago. If that is the case, then I feel I got a good deal. If the drive blows up 10 hours into next year, then not so good of a deal :)

You might want to measure how deep your prop is from the bottom of the hull. At 8.25in, mine was a no brainer (newer boats will be somewhere between 3in and 5in and fast boats with surfacing props will run 2-4 inches above the hull bottom)

As a small warning, I did lose some planing time. It's not bad, and never really a struggle, but compared to when the prop was deep in the water, it's a destinct change. If I were using the boat for wakeboarding, it would probably bother me, but my average use is: get on plane, accelerate to 60mph, cruise for 20 minutes with one or two bursts to 70 where appropriate, stop, shut down, chill for a couple hours, repeat.

Whats your top speed?

The 260 hull is a solid running hull - not the fastest nor the slowest. It works perfectly for what it was designed to do. As you know the 260 is nearly bullet proof when it comes to handling. You crank the wheel at 55-60mph and it turns like its on rails. You never fear that it is going to spin out or that you're going to lose control.

Hull design, overall weight, location of center of gravity, x dimension, all play into the boat's solid but slower performance than comparably sized boats.

bcarpman's boat is a '93 which is the first year the boat was made so the factory was likely still experimenting with x dimension, props, outdrive gear ratio etc. on production boats. Plus PQ's were built like Sherman tanks in the early 90's so his boat probably weighs more than a 260 from late 90's or newer.

Also, we shipped all the boats from the factory (mid 90's on) with a Mirage Plus 3 blade prop. The extra cup on the "Plus" really helped to lift the nose on the boat. I think the "Plus" didn't come out until 95 or 96 so it probably had just a Mirage on the boat. And my experience with running a 4 blade prop will give you rocket acceleration out of the hole but it will typically lift the stern and drive the nose down.

Also, keep in mind that we stayed with Mercury product so we did all of our testing with Merc props. There may be something that performs better that we never even tested.

bcarpman what drive ratio are you running and what type prop and pitch?

Marc

[QUOTE=MK;2722749
bcarpman's boat is a '93 which is the first year the boat was made so the factory was likely still experimenting with x dimension, props, outdrive gear ratio etc. on production boats. Plus PQ's were built like Sherman tanks in the early 90's so his boat probably weighs more than a 260 from late 90's or newer.

Marc[/QUOTE]

That is probably why my 91 290 was probably the best boat I've owned. My 99 380 if you remember Marc was a different story!

My 97 seems to be on par with the 93 I had. However my 97 was built for whoever was the manager at that time so it maybe the exception?? Not sure as far as hull construction if there was any difference. But I will say corner were cut throughout on several of the newer models I looked at.

I'm running a 24p LH Bravo 1 4 blade w/ 1.5 ratio drive.

I tried a variety of 3 blade props and just blew them loose with even the smallest amount of throttle

I'm running the new Hydro 4 blade and the boat really seems to like it. Never had any luck with the Bravo's.

Tabs are a definite requirement for the 260 Legend SX. Mine was a 1998 with a 502 and no tabs. Sooner or later every time I would run the boat at top speed it would chine walk. That was the only issue with that boat and it was great otherwise.

Bcarpman Whats the latest on the hull re-work?

had to put the work off till spring. Had some delays getting access to the gantry to lift the hull, then had to leave town for work (don't you hate when life gets in the way of working on the boat?)

I'll definately get back to this thread once I get started this spring.

Bowkers fiberglass cut the strakes off of a 260 a few years ago. I believe it was a 2001 and the boat handled the same and there was minimal gain. I think it was like 1mph on GPS but the boat was on the limiters at the time and I lost touch with the guy. The boat was on bowkersfiberglass.com for a while but I don't see it anymore.

Wedges
 

Any updates on taking the wedges off?