To add to what Dale said my friend Bob with the 30' Skater and 300x motors has hull pickups also. Originally they had them feed the motor up in the powerhead and it did not work well. Use the dimple like Dale said. Also if you want to make 100 percent race ready Sam you can hook up both hull pickups together with a cross over so that when as your winding down the turns at Tic Faw at 100 plus water pressure wont drop off on the outside motor.

ron what kinda psi does you friend run at speed with his set up? how do the seals in his lowers hold up?

I was having too low water pressure (less than 5 PSI and warning alarm) in one motor and too high water pressures in the other motor (greater that 35PSI) in
tight turns. Installed a -10 AN water crossover between the two motors and now have almost equal water pressures in both motors in tight turns (around 10 to 12 PSI). Sam, how high are your gear cases when loosing pressure?

Did you guys see the post on DCB. Looks like max speed was 108mph. They are saying 105mph all day 10mph faster than the Opti powered boat.
From the pic the boat sits pretty nice with the weight on the transom.
Looking forward to see what the 30' Skater picks up.

Matt's article said they were also spinning Bravo's which to me indicates there is a more on the table if they went to a better prop to get every mph out of it ....How much more - don't know as the DCB's are heavier but it sounds like they were after a utlitarian setup.

Either way 14mph faster than optis is an improvement over 300's

Has anyone run the numbers to see if 14mph is the realistic gain of adding the extra 200 ponies?...just asking as there was a baseline mentioned with the 300XS' in Matt's piece.

I'm sure these motors have a lot more torque and can spin to 7K. It sounds like 10 mph faster is a more probable baseline for gains but still to be determined. I'm sure the Skater is lighter too. Very cool stuff!

I would say no because you have to factor in the additional weight of the motors also. A GPS reading posted to me doesn't mean anything. There are many ways to inflate the number to make it look good. I can believe 10mph but that is about it for me. JMO. Maybe wrong but as more motors go on cats time will tell.

I saw 5 MPH increase going from 32" BBlade Bravo I's to Merc 4B cleavers same pitch on my 308 classic deck.

:confused:You would think they were smart enough to try some cleavers!

The Speed On The Water article states 108MPH, 6500RPM, 1.75 gears, 32P prop for the 400/DCB. That calculates to 4% slip..... really???? The best slip numbers I have experienced is 8%. Who is zoom'n who?

Man you are good with details and numbers! Do you do corporate tax returns BTW?

DCB slicker than greased owl S*#+!

Skate, No, I quit paying taxes, taxes are for losers and Dem's. I guess the numbers and details thing goes with the territory of being an architect. I think the thing that is slicker is the spin coming from the DCB/400's guys!

None of us w/ 28/300s have to worry about that 29/400s ever coming around us........ :D

Hey guys I spoke to the owner of the boat myself and since its public I can tell you the motors were bouncing off the rev limiters at that top speed with the Bravo props. Slip was too high. Im sure he'll test other props. He said the motors ran great and pulled real hard up well into the mid 90's. I think slip was up around 11%.

That would put the MPH at 102??

Just did prop slip Calc and it showed 32 pitch 7000rpm 108mph and 11% slip

Cool, at 7000RPM. I was using what they posted on SOTW, 6500RPM.

11% slip is about as good as that big heavy boat is gonna' get. Bravo 1 props are not necessarily "slow" props for this boat either. They're round ear (obviously), high rake, large blade area and have a heavy trailing edge cup - which typically work well for big heavy boats that can't carry themselves. It wouldn't surprise me if Bravo 1s end up being the fastest prop on that setup (obviously needs a little more pitch if they're on the rev-limiters). My buddy's 27 Daytona w/ XSs ran about the same speed with his worked 32 Bravo 1s as it did when we ran my 15.5" x 34" labbed Merc 4 blade Cleavers on it. These heavy West-Coast boats need help from high-lift props to reduce the wetted surface for faster top speeds. Those 400Rs are doing pretty damn good to push that 5,000++ pound rig that fast! Go to BAM's website and use their speed calculator........add 1,000 #s to your 28 setup and you'll see it drops the top speed 12mph! Boat speeds only have three parts to the equation - constant (efficiency)/weight/horsepower. I'll never forget sitting in Pete's office and hearing him tell a customer on the phone that his (Pete's) boats are a dyno - you tell him which model you have and how fast it's going and he'll tell you how much horsepower you have................

Exactly Dale! Add about almost 400lbs and only 200hp and what do you get???? Not 15mph.
The boat ran what we thought. I know Steve is hoping for more as well.
We will see how the wide body Skater responds but the test is skewed due to the changes Pete made with hull. It would have been better to use a stock 30' boat. Compare that to Bob's 30 at 112mph and a 300x might be just as fast. Add the DBR kit and you will have a winner at 370hp with only 465lbs!!!!
That would push Bobs skater over 115mph easily. Pretty impressive.

Anybody hearing any #s yet on any 400 rigs? The DCB camp got real quiet after first running the boat almost 2 months ago - I'd think we'd all hear about it if they broke 110. Last we heard they were getting 108 out of it - which isn't all that impressive, considering Robert Loeffler is getting 111 out of his 30 Skater w/ 300X motors on it.

If you're talking about the blue one, yeah he got his @$$ handed to him. His boat is still in the shop because he broke off powerhead studs on both engines (inside the block) and motor mounts. I also have a 24 O/B and was supposed to go that day but backed out due to the weather conditions. It was cold and windy as hell. Probably saved myself some $$.

Tony, you made the right call. The weather was tolerable, but you would have taken a serious beating.

I hope the guy in the blue OB cat gets everything repaired without too many issues.

I've also busted the upper motor mounts on of a pair of 300s (PMs) on one of my 28s out in the ocean. It broke the casting of the adapter plate where the mounts attach. I had water flowing out of the front of the motors at idle after it happened - I knew it wasn't a good sign! I felt lucky that the motors didn't fall off the swivel bracket while we were running 80-90 in 3' swells. We were the 9th boat to Catalina Island though out of 120+ at the SCOPE Poker Run that year!

From what I heard from Troy at Supreme where that boat is there is a lot broken pieces in the mid section as well as the studs that held the steering.

anyone know the general longevity of the 350's????

I add does anyone also know burn rates to that question...

just wondering what rpm range they are being run and average hours... I know the mercury outboard guy here has done quite a few upgrades from 300 to 350 but I didn't ask what kinda hours the 300's had and how they checked out at the time.(compression/ leak down etc) I wonder how hard you can run them for extended periods of time...I know I don't cut my 300xs's much slack unless the wife is on board LOL. I do have a pretty new Yamaha 250 SHO on bay boat but I don't run it hard for long.