Parker or Bust!

[steve sr.]

Al, I ran into Ron at Apple Valley Marine last week and he offered me the 7X boat for real cheap. I was tempted but I saw the pictures of it running and I'm not sure I'm ready to go out in that blaze of glory yet. I think we're going to stick with the Blue Brick and see if we can make it go a little faster.

The kid is at the lake as we speak running the fuel out of it with my grandson, so you should be seeing it at your place in a couple of weeks. There are no plans to race it for a few months (march at the earliest).

How much effect do those set back plates on the bottom have on the back of the boat (cav plates) and could they be the cause of the hook thats pushing the nose down? I'm sure over the years those have been used as a step to get in and out. The only thing that really bothered me driving the boat was the chine walking, you could tell that you were only a second (or a mph) away from disaster, and more speed only made it worse. I've driven V bottoms that reacted like that but never on a bottom like that. Even the Sleekie SST with a stock nose cone wasen't that bad.

See ya in a couple of weeks. As soon as my son has a date I'll let you know!!

Steve Sr.
Team 647/918
The Big BLUE BRICK

[647and918]

Al, I ran into Ron at Apple Valley Marine last week and he offered me the 7X boat for real cheap. I was tempted but I saw the pictures of it running and I'm not sure I'm ready to go out in that blaze of glory yet. I think we're going to stick with the Blue Brick and see if we can make it go a little faster.

The kid is at the lake as we speak running the fuel out of it with my grandson, so you should be seeing it at your place in a couple of weeks. There are no plans to race it for a few months (march at the earliest).

How much effect do those set back plates on the bottom have on the back of the boat (cav plates) and could they be the cause of the hook thats pushing the nose down? I'm sure over the years those have been used as a step to get in and out. The only thing that really bothered me driving the boat was the chine walking, you could tell that you were only a second (or a mph) away from disaster, and more speed only made it worse. I've driven V bottoms that reacted like that but never on a bottom like that. Even the Sleekie SST with a stock nose cone wasen't that bad.

See ya in a couple of weeks. As soon as my son has a date I'll let you know!!

Steve Sr.
Team 647/918
The Big BLUE BRICK

You have to be able to accelerate through the chine walk... It goes away... The problem is that it isn't running fast enough right now to get through it...

We camped out in the back of the truck at Lake Pleasant last night... The air mattress was missing the cap (so, no air mattress)... The bed liner in the truck was NOT comfortable... We didn't burn enough gas yesterday and today, but I bought an annual pass so I'll go back over this week and finish it off...

I will haul the boat over there some time in the next couple of weeks and drop it off... I want to ask for recommendations before I do the gas tank thing, so I won't yank them out yet (or have the tank(s) made)...

[647and918]

If you happened to be in the area of Perris or Elsinore tomorrow around 9:00-10:00 we could get rid of the extra gas...

I'll call you in the morning and you can let me know if I should stop on my way by...

[steve sr.]

Sorry, can't make it, but it's good news that the Blue Brick is on it's way to Doctor Stoker. Now maybe we can find out why it runs like an anchor. I like the way the new name has stuck...

Did you see the thing about the Calcuta for next years 300. That sounds like a fun deal. Might just add a little something for the locals, make them more a part of it. See you sometime today.

DAD

[647and918]

Ok, this thread is going to take new direction... Starting today, I'm going to track everything that we do and what kind of improvement we see as a result... I would very much appreciate everyone's suggestions and input as we move forward... I will be open to pretty much anything (well, anything that's financially reasonable anyway), and we'll see how much improvement we can get... I'm lucky enough to be 10 minutes from the lake with spare time during the week when it's calm, so I should be able to get fairly rapid feedback... Let's build a boat!!!

The current setup:
1986 Stoker, weight relatively unknown (at least 1600 lbs with motor)... I'll find out for sure later...
1987 3.6L V8 Johnson, likely fairly stock (Second Effort motor & lower unit, so it should have a decent amount of power)...
Full interior less the back seat (the back end of the boat is too heavy, so I'm leaving it out for this, even at the start)...
Three gas tanks; Two side tanks @ ~18 gallons each and one bow tank @ ~18-20 gallons or slightly more... They will all be full for each of the tests so we don't pick up any cheap speed... I'll drain them all (or run them out) at some point to get exact capacities...
Jackplate - max height is about 2-2.5" below the planing surface (I'll also measure this later to be exact)... It also appears to be "dropping" slightly over time, so it probably needs some work (it isn't happening fast enough to have an effect during the race, but it's annoying)...
Prop - Mazco RE3, 30p

The judge:
My GPS... I doesn't seem to lie like my speedo... It's depressing, but it doesn't lie...

The baseline:
75.1 MPH at Lake Pleasant this morning... We were several MPH faster on the GPS at Havasu before the race with the interior out and less fuel, but this seems like a good starting point...

The suggestions so far:
(1) Fix the stinking upper motor mounts... This will need to be done before I do anything else and is not optional... I can't have this thing falling off while I'm testing... Hmmm... If it does, will my insurance cover it?
(2) Move the jackplate up to a position that will allow the boat to run as designed... I want to have to go DOWN to be at 1" below the planing surface for the race... I don't see this as optional...
(3) Tie the motor down properly and bungee the one side only... This is not optional...
(4) Blueprint the bottom of the boat... Not only is it not flat, it's fairly chewed up... There is a quarter sized spot that is just missing, and a fair number of grooves... This is also not optional...
(5) Prop, prop, prop... Not optional... The 30p is nice, but I'm sure I should be running something slightly smaller... 28p perhaps?
(6) Have one of the V8 guru's work with it to make sure it is running like it should... This is not necessarily optional, but may be cost prohibitive...
(7) Move the side tanks as far forward as possible, possibly increasing the size and eliminating the bow tank... I'll have to look into this, but I like the fact that it shifts weight forward... Borderline optional, but definitely on the wish list...
(8) Replace the V8 with something else... I'm guessing this is just not going to happen based on what I can spend right now... I think I can probably get more bang for my buck by doing #6 above... These things are monsters when they are running like they should...

What other suggestions are out there?

Thanks!

Steve...

I ran the brick over to Al this week to take care of the motor mounts and generally harass him to see what we can do with this thing to make it run a little better... So far:

(1) The upper motor mounts have been fixed. MUCH more stable...
(2) Banged on the tunnel plates to make them slightly more level (one side was tweaked slightly)...
(3) We confirmed that there is a bump under the ski pole... I need to take this out (see below for the reason this is now next on the list)...
(4) Adjusted the timing properly...
(5) For the record, it dyno's out at about 300HP or so...
(6) The jackplate is at max height... Al suggested bolting the motor to a fixed plate before the race next year, but not before if we still want to go skiing... This will pick the motor up to the height it should be and move the weight closer to the back of the boat (Physics says that's a good thing)... We'll wait to do this until the rules for next year have been set... We're about 2.5 inches below where we should be, which is 10-12MPH that we're giving up...

The judge:
My GPS...

The initial result:
79.3 MPH at Lake Pleasant this morning...

It started porpoising like crazy around 75 and wouldn't go any faster than that going straight (every time the nose came back down it slowed considerably)... I was able to get past that point by giving it a slight turn (presumably changing the way the water flowed across the bottom of the boat), but I'm sure there is more there if I can get past the porpoise... I'm thinking I can pick up another few MPH by flattening the bottom... If I can get to 82-85 and rid myself of the porpoise when that's done I'll be pretty happy...

[steve sr.]

Now its just a matter of getting balance right. If we could unload the drivers seat (just kidding) get rid of the bow tank, change the side tanks (25gal per side) and move them forward then wait for the new rules.

The faster we go with that unit down that low the worse its going to get. Between that and the bottom work you should be right where you want to be.

[steve sr.]

Whats goin on haven't heard a word from you in a week. Is there a chance that there is a bottom guy over your way? Save you a long drive. Still haven't been able to get ahold of B&K so I'm not sure whats going on there.

I know you said you were going to slow down for the winter, but March is just around the corner, and we gotta do somthing about how the brick comes out of the turns....

DAD

[647and918]

Whats goin on haven't heard a word from you in a week. Is there a chance that there is a bottom guy over your way? Save you a long drive. Still haven't been able to get ahold of B&K so I'm not sure whats going on there.

I know you said you were going to slow down for the winter, but March is just around the corner, and we gotta do somthing about how the brick comes out of the turns....

DAD

Didn't I talk to you Saturday night? Since when is two days considered a "week"??? It hasn't even been a week since I left SoCal...

Don't worry about B&K, I'll figure something out in this part of the world... I'll probably work on it myself from time to time to at least get it reasonably close... I broke down and bought an annual pass for Pleasant a week or two ago, so it's fairly quick and cheap to run out to the lake for an hour or two to see how it's working...

What Winter? It's 86 here today...

I did get that wheel bracket bolted back up and the bungees yanked off the back... It's back in the garage, so I'm sure I'll play with it when everyone else is sleeping...

I will be back over there with the brick at some point though... Once the rules are set I'll ask Mr. Stoker to fix the motor height and probably do something with the steering to tighten it up...

[steve sr.]

You know winter. Thats when my $350 electric bill changes to a $350 gas bill to keep the hollowed halls warm. It was 31 here last night and will probably only get to the low 70s today. They say it may drop into the 20s this week.

Hows it going? You taking the Big Blue Brick out again or is it parked for the holidays? Have you checked any further into the gas tank issue? Why can't we just put sand into that front tank as balast?

Once the side tanks and mounting brakets are changed we may not need anything else. It seems to me that in the "old days" we used run 90 min to 2 hrs on 50gal of fuel. I thought we made 4 pit stops in the 7 hours, but I could be wrong.

Chat with you later

[steve sr.]

Haven't seen a thread from you in a while. Have you looked around over there for a glass guy? I'll try to make it over there for a couple of days while lori is in texas. I think she leaves around the 19th.

Do you still have the white epoxy and glass stuff you bought while we were in Parker. If so I could get the speedo tube thing done while I'm there. Should only take a couple of hours. Might even be able to get the bump out.
I'll let you know exact dates, just in case you find work.

I'm not sure who the bug bit worse (you or me) but I'm sure ready to go racing. On a serious note you know this will be the last year for me so you better start looking (or training) a new guy. I'll still crew for you and be an Opie, but unless I can find a prescription visor my driving days will be over.


I'm looking around over here for another helmet. I gave the one I got to Jodie for off roading with his buddies. I'm looking for a Bell with no visor, but a face shield. The bugs in the teeth don't cut it and my glass's don't do much good over 75mph.

All for now
Love You Son

Steve Sr.
647/918 Team
The Big Blue Brick