i am looking for any suggestions or thoughts people may have that might be helpful in my re-powering project. i don’t want to over look something !
i have ordered a couple motors from bruce dudley (who’s frequently on OSO). anyway the cranks are being balanced right now for a couple 540s. these will have efi and the new larger whipple with the 2100 cfm throttle body. they are being built as blower motors from the start, so the compression will be 8.2:1 to allow the whipples to work and really pack the fuel/air into the cylinders. they will have roller cams and i’m getting the large oil coolers with thermostats, putting in oil temp., water pressure and vacuum / boost gauges. bruce is also installing external hydraulic steering, nose cones and i will probably be running hydormotive props. any thoughts people have are welcome, as this is costing a bunch-o-$ so i want to do it right the first time !
i will be posting other questions in the “technical q & a” section, but i wanted to ask advice from people who have specific sunsation knowledge first.

thank you
dean campbell

What computer will you be using? Sooounds like a killer project. What heads and cam will you use? Will it be intercooled? Maybe 800HP?

cobra marty,
I’m still not quite sure what bruce is going to do with the computer. i know he talked to dustin quite a bit about setting things up as far as cam vs. compression vs. boost, ext. and i guess dustin suggested using the computer off my 330s with some kind of mods? sorry i haven’t gotten the entire scoop on that one yet, i could be wrong but as i understand it, it’s a conversion package that whipple offers? as he gets into it that’s one of the things i want to learn more about. the heads will be aluminum, don’t know the valve size yet. he has told me once he starts putting things to gather he will email pictures with info. on how things are going. but i am glad you brought that up because these are things i want to know. i will let you know as things go on.
i must admit; i’ve never met bruce before but so far i am very impressed with the time & research he’s put into the project before ever even starting.

dean campbell

With the Dominator,
I found that drive "heel" angle becomes pretty important over 90 mph. I'm currently running 1/16th inch of "heel" in. I tried everything from 1/2 inch heel out, to 1/2 inch heel in. The 1/16th heel in seemed to work best. Whenever the drives were heeled out, there would be a tendancy to chine walk over 90 mph. With 1/2" heel out, things got VERY exciting at 90 mph. I went with 1/16th heel in because I believe that the drives have about 1/16" of slop. This way, the range of heel angle will be between 0" and 1/8th" heel in. Each boat can be different though. You may want to look at you current tie bar and make sure you have room to play with.

The only other thing I suggest, is to triple check all of you bolster clearances. The Dominator does not have a large engine compartment. Those boys at the factory used all the space under the hatch... and then some! I had to make quite a few bolster modifications to get a set of whipple charged 454 EFI's under the hatch. Top clearance wasn't an issue, it was the forward clearance that caused problems. Basically, I had to move the hatch, rear bench, and side bolsters forward about three inches. If you look at this picture, you can see the small, black bolster I added to fill the gap between the rear of the hatch and the rear of the engine bay.

Good luck with your project and make sure to send us pictures whenever you get a chance.

-Bayley

Bayley,
heel in/out, i’m glad you brought that up. that’s something i hadn’t thought of but could make a huge difference. you say “1/16” heel in”, where are you measuring that from?
what else did you do to make room besides moving the hatch forward? did you need to do any thing with the back seat & that back board? if so what about the batteries?
i like that picture of your boat! that’s a clean looking ride, lot of attention to detail.
how much boost are you running?, have you installed nose cones? and how fast have you got it up to?

Bayley,
i just saw your comparison of the oem throttle body vs. the whipple throttle body. wow! what a difference, is that the 2100 cfm body?

Yup, those are the 2100 cfm units.
I was actually hoping for a little bit better numbers from the dyno. I talked to Dustin Whipple about the results and he said the water temp was way to high (140 degrees). His claim was that if I ran the motors at 100 degrees, which is where they normally run on the lake, I could easily see an extra 40 - 50 hp. Either way, I tell people it's a 550 hp motor and I know I'm getting at least that. I thought about running more boost this year, but the motors are already using 7 psi at WOT so I'm hesitant to add much more than that.


The "heel" measurements I took were from the prop shaft hub centers, then the gimbal housing on the transom. On the housing, there is a nice center mark cast into the metal. Makes for a very nice measuring point. The props, however, will require a bit of finesse to find the center. It's not an exact science, but it gets you close enough to make a difference.

To make additional room for the blowers, the rear section of the side seat bolsters had to be trimmed back, show in this picture. The rear most section of the seat bolster was a 1/2" thick piece of wood. This wood was removed, about an additional 1/4" of the side structure (wood) was also removed, then the rear piece was replaced with an 1/8" thick sheet of metal. This was needed for the seat to clear the belt pulley for the blower. I didn't have to initially do this for the port side bolster, but I've recently added a hydraulic helm unit with very large reservoir and I'm currently making the same modification to the port bolster. Batteries and everything else behind the seats stayed in the original factory location. The only interference was with the hatch.

For the drives, a set of "Bob's Marine" nose cones were installed with low water pickup. Everyone has told me about how large of a mistake the low water pickups were and that I should have used a transom mount thru hull pickup instead. They were right, in the fact that they are a pain in the ass... but they perform just as well (if not better) as any transom pickup. I have had to pull some weeds out of the pickup before, but it wasn't the major painstaking task that everyone promised me it would be.

Speed you ask?
Yeah, the one great mystery. I've been playing around with propellers ever since the blowers were bolted on. I've been working with a set of Spinelli's the most, but I have to think that a set of Bravo's will easily out perform them. I'm looking at picking up a set of Bravo 32's this summer if the latest batch of Spinellis don't work to my expectations. I'm sure I'll post results on this board.

Thanks for the kind words. Keep us updated on your project.

-Bayley

Plan on getting a couple of IMCO Extreme SC's. You're gonna have a 100 mph boat there

FWIW, Bruce is just finishing up my rig.

Bayley-

Quick question for you... a friend of mine with an Intimadator has the same set up you have except he obviously has a single instead of twins. You mentioned that you are currently running 7lbs of boost on the guage. Can you tell me what diameter pulley that is. He is running a 3" pulley and is getting 6lbs. He was thinkng about buying a 2 7/8" pulley. There are some differences in yours and his set-up that may show different boost readings. He had his heads beefed up (Inconel valves, port and polish), but is running the stock throttle body. Just trying to figure out what is the best pulley to run and what boost level is "safe". It seems that you have pretty much dialed yours in and any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Ty
Aggressor 25

Keep us in the loop... I dont think I am fra behind you... I think you will have the WORLD FASTEST SUNSATION......

I want to read more when you have it !

Rick32