Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

Yup it's a good question. I know people have taken the alum blocks to 1000 hp but this type of racing is ridiculously tough on the engines. The one thing that helps us a bit is that we have an unlimited supply of cold water. Here is a 4 min vid of what we are doing from a few years ago. The particular day was a 50 mile leg one way and then 50 miles back a couple hours later it was day 1 of a 10 day race. It starts out with some turbine boat but you get the idea.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0abLBVYlQlk

That's pretty bad ass stuff, realistically what's the budget, and how critical is weight?

The weight can be important. The lower the HP class the more important it is. This class would be right in the middle. 200 lbs extra weight seems to cost one about 1 mph. Budget wise my existing engine is around 30k if one was to start from scratch. so 30-40k CDN would be the budget. however I do have many peices for an LS build already and can make alot of other things myself.

jet1 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2017 1:23 pm Yup it's a good question. I know people have taken the alum blocks to 1000 hp but this type of racing is ridiculously tough on the engines. The one thing that helps us a bit is that we have an unlimited supply of cold water. Here is a 4 min vid of what we are doing from a few years ago. The particular day was a 50 mile leg one way and then 50 miles back a couple hours later it was day 1 of a 10 day race. It starts out with some turbine boat but you get the idea.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0abLBVYlQlk

Yeah, what's the worst that could happen there with 1000hp motor... looks perfectly safe, right? Group health insurance from your employer, I assume?

We have done pretty well until this year in NZ. A navigator was killed when he was hit by a log hanging out in the river.
Right now I am running just under 800 hp. the turbines are usually 1500-1800 hp and some are just starting in with 2200 hp. Here is another vid of the turbine action a few years ago. No one was hurt but it was a little scary.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbW233MOAlg
second one is the lowest hp class but neat just watch it from 1:15 to 3:30 is the best.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6w1bWGTNiU

I'd like to retract my twin-turbo destroked 4V modular Ford suggestion. It'll be too fast and reliable to be put on a boat like that. That LS stuff is much better for your chance of survival!

theres several ways to go
maybe a sbf with an LSM billet block? or a dart CG block, CHI heads or CFE billet heads
The modular motor sounds neat if the blocks take the power.

theres a fellow on here running a 4 x 2.5" sbc in a streamliner

This really interests me. I drive and work on jet boats myself but commercially built pilot boats. Our 50 footer have 2 x 1000 hp Scanias and RR A3 jets. 44 knots.

What comes to mind is boat balance. I see you have stabilizing wings to trim (or just stabilize?) the bow. How much do you guys experience with weight distribution, or is the common thinking to put the engine where it fits close to transom? Are the jets long tail installed?

Shit now I want to build one like that. I have available a Yanmar 6LY3 bobtail too. And a driveshaft. Hmmmmm

What about the 3.5 Ecoboost BTW? Just throwing it out there, I know very little about them.

kimosabi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2017 4:18 am This really interests me. I drive and work on jet boats myself but commercially built pilot boats. Our 50 footer have 2 x 1000 hp Scanias and RR A3 jets. 44 knots.

What comes to mind is boat balance. I see you have stabilizing wings to trim (or just stabilize?) the bow. How much do you guys experience with weight distribution, or is the common thinking to put the engine where it fits close to transom? Are the jets long tail installed?

Shit now I want to build one like that. I have available a Yanmar 6LY3 bobtail too. And a driveshaft. Hmmmmm

The canard wings are to adjust the amount of lift the boat supplies. These are air trapping tunnel hulls so weight distribution is huge. The rule of thumb has been the farther back you can get the weight the less it effects the speed. Within reason of course. The faster boats (over 125 mph) start to creat too much lif so we start moving weight ahead to help. The jet nozzle is roughly 36" from transom.

kimosabi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2017 4:39 am What about the 3.5 Ecoboost BTW? Just throwing it out there, I know very little about them.

Thought about that a bit but there has been alot more done with the vq35de and larger variants from Nissan. It is another option though just not familiar with them at all.

jet1 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2017 10:17 am

kimosabi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2017 4:18 am This really interests me. I drive and work on jet boats myself but commercially built pilot boats. Our 50 footer have 2 x 1000 hp Scanias and RR A3 jets. 44 knots.

What comes to mind is boat balance. I see you have stabilizing wings to trim (or just stabilize?) the bow. How much do you guys experience with weight distribution, or is the common thinking to put the engine where it fits close to transom? Are the jets long tail installed?

Shit now I want to build one like that. I have available a Yanmar 6LY3 bobtail too. And a driveshaft. Hmmmmm

The canard wings are to adjust the amount of lift the boat supplies. These are air trapping tunnel hulls so weight distribution is huge. The rule of thumb has been the farther back you can get the weight the less it effects the speed. Within reason of course. The faster boats (over 125 mph) start to creat too much lif so we start moving weight ahead to help. The jet nozzle is roughly 36" from transom.

I remember a 25ft Phantom I tested for a customer. It had ballast tank just in front of your feet, with a foot switch scoop and drain. This was years ago when Phantoms were real popular. At the speeds you're dealing with canards is probably way better than ballast and trim the hull much more efficient.

Have you tried moving the jet back further or is there a rule?

Have ran a ballast tank in the past. It can be dangerous with the sloshing water and it is to slow to react. No rule on jet pump placement and we have them back pretty far. Most of the pump is actually behind the boat. The boat pictured has since moved the pump back another 4" Really thinking that an alum 5.3 block would be the way to go on this. Thicker cyl walls combined with the shorter stroke hopefully would keep the block from moving to much. Parts are cheaper valve rain should be to hard to get to live without breaking the bank. If it does grenade the next class down is a crate only class that uses an ls3 based engine.

ptuomov wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2017 4:56 pm I'd like to retract my twin-turbo destroked 4V modular Ford suggestion. It'll be too fast and reliable to be put on a boat like that. That LS stuff is much better for your chance of survival!

Come on its pretty safe. One of my competitors did this few years ago and was good to go, other than the boat.
http://s1197.photobucket.com/user/allbl ... sort=3&o=3
http://s1197.photobucket.com/user/allbl ... sort=3&o=4

Well I think you have a good plan. 1.000hp should be within reach and thanks for the insight. Run methanol and you won't need a chargecooler.