Woody (Forum Supportum) said:You've done some amazing work!
I wish I could take credit for the wood work on the boat. That's the real impressive bit.
But I must say I'm pretty pleased with how I did with the paint. And very pleased so far with what I was able to do with a basket case motor.
Wow Keller still makes throttles too. I saw they were local to me and had to give it a google.
In reply to java230 :
Wow you're right, and they look exactly the same.
Some of you may know hydroplanes are cool because they throw big old rooster tails. But you may not know that those aren't from the prop, most of that signature cool tail comes from a fin that is mounted to the inside sponson. It dips down into the water whole cornering and you drag the boat around the corner on it.
Tonight I finished modifying my mount to take a wider (possibly safer ) turn fin. One of the last things on the to do list before the weekend.
The plan since Thursday was to go out and test on Monday. Grandparents were lined up to watch the kiddo, boat was in the trailer and the weather forecast was calling for 60 degrees and almost no wind. I had plans to leave my place about 8am for the drive up with my daughter to pick up the boat.
Instead my daughter woke up at 5am and there was no getting her back down in her crib so I said screw it lets just pack up and go she may fall asleep in the car. That's when I opened the door to go put the carseat in and noticed the hard frost on my windshield.
Well no one likes a quitter, so into the car she went (fortunately slept most of the hour up once we were moving) and we landed and the grandparents a little after 7. We passed the Old Cocagne Regatta race course on the say up and the water had barely a ripple.
By mid morning we had the boats all in one place and started picking off the last couple things on the to do list on the bezoat. Set the timing on the 80, put a sleeve on the throttle cable. Install the skid fin mount and fin (after Carruthers measured about 5 times to make sure it was bang on). As we were doing this the wind shifted to coming out of the east, this meant the usually very calm water in the testing area was starting to form small rollers. But no one likes a quitter so we carried on.
By early afternoon we had all the boats ready to go, a pair of vintage bezoats, one 35 year old Carruthers built boat and one current CSH. So I bolted on my prop, put in the plugs, said a little prayer and after sending the rescue boat out with 2 buoys we decided to send the black bezoat out to check the water conditions.
Ok, so sending the black boat out first was a bit of a cop out. So Now it was time to step into the water (by this point it was almost a bomby 60 degrees out ). But did I mention how people feel about quitters?
Here we go, it floats...time to get started.
So I guess the question is how did it work? The short answer is that it works great. Only 2 minor glitches all day, lost my fuel cap and once had the motor cut out when I may or may not have shifted to much to look back at the black bezoat (definite moment on dread followed by great relief).
We didn't bother with GPS or recording laptimes, the water was only good enough to go full throttle for part of the straightaways. Instead I focused on breaking in my engine with pretty gentle laps and only the occasional short bursts of WOT to see how it was going to fly.
this is awesome. Video next time!!!!
Do you know approx. how long between bouys you typically will run? Very curious if something like this could be set up on my lake...
In reply to golfduke :
I didn't set up the buoys but I would say the straights were about an 1/8 of a mile. Maybe a little longer. I'll try and get a Video up on YouTube and post a link.
https://youtu.be/jmYmZeveDMM
see if this works.
Was really hoping to get out today but the weather just didn't cooperate. Found and started my brothers new boat and motor combo yesterday but the river just wasn't smooth enough to try it (30mph winds).
New next test date is next Sunday, weather permitting. 
Well I had a pretty humbling weekend. We had everything from a boat going under on Saturday (luckily only in 2-3 feet of water and motor was already shut off) to potential motor damage yesterday when a motor inhaled a piece of seaweed. While all this was going on with other boats I was struggling big time with carb issues. Ultimately we did get my carb mostly sorted and on my final test run I also got my coolant passages plugged with seaweed (won't be running at that low tide again). Fortunately I was watching and brought the boat in on lap two (was in and out of the throttle not full speed laps). My 80 got very hot but after cooling down and flushing the coolant passages it started fine and seems to be alright. Unfortunately I think one of the others has some work to do on his.
Overall the win of the weekend was seeing my brother get more comfortable in his new red boat. He was making huge strides and getting faster every run out! His newly acquired 80 runs well and the boat seems quick and stable.
I'll be honest this is a cut and past update from another forum that's being unplugged. Don't know why I didn't post this update here.
Last weekend was the second annual last blast hydroplane event at Chapel Point in NB. This event was a regular stop for many racers in eastern Canada for many years between the 1950's right up until 1987.
With 15 boats in attendance it was time to see how my junky 80 and revived bezoat held up.
In short I think the numbers speak for themselves. I finished P6 of 9 boats in the 20ssh field (not bad for a rookie) and despite having some set up issues and some tuning challenges I never finished a heat last. I also was given the chance to run 1 heat of CSH where I was able to place P4 of 6 which I was pleased with.
Overall despite having a stomach flu and living off pepto and light food for the day Saturday I was very pleased. As far as I know I didn't cut anyone off, held my lines and had a great time. I think with further tuning on my motor (just need another 1-2mph right?) and some more seat time I will have a very capable set up. I ended up cutting the weekend short due to not feeling well while others ran Sunday. As always there's a huge numbers of people to thank, many Carruthers', k Smith for lending me a cut shirt, and a great group of friends who helped me pit and also helped run the clock when needed.
While my basket case motor ran well last year and will get a re ring and put on backup duty I had the chance to buy a motor that has been in storage for 20 years as a backup for someone. It was too good to pass up. Note it's original down to the brass two blade metric prop. Shame I'll need to replace that to be competitive.
Ok,
Time to come clean. When I put this motor together last year we all knew it wasn’t perfect. I ran all last year with stock sized rings on .015 over pistons. Truth be told every time the motor was out my ring gap that started at 0.08 was growing and growing. Compression was dropping and so was power. There were also some things I’ve learned since that I just plain did wrong. Time to give the basket case 80 some love for getting me through the summer. It will be better and good practice before I tear into my hopefully nicer “new” motor.
Well poop.
Is there a matching bad spot on the cylinder? Can that be fixed?
NY Nick said:Is there a matching bad spot on the cylinder? Can that be fixed?
nothing you can pick up your with your fingernail...but I don't think I can re use the piston.
We tried jacking the motor up on our second to last heat last summer. It wasn't cooling well and luckily it was black flagged after one lap. I came in but the motor was already steaming. Probably lucky I didn't take it out another heat of the cylinder would have been trash as well. It must have just barely started to go.
Gapping some fresh rings gonna find some compression again.
In reply to 1SlowVW :
Cylinder looks decent still!
java230 said:In reply to 1SlowVW :
Cylinder looks decent still!
Yes, luckily it will clean up fine with a hone.
Almost back together now, some maintenance to do to the lower unit. Have a couple weeks before testing to get my gear together.
Some other notes, last time I installed rings I went with 0.006 ring gap, I have come to learn that's too big a gap for the bore size. That combined with a cooling problem definitely causes a ring to grab a port and cause the scuff.
This time the gap has been closed up. A friend of mine had a fancy 4 stone hone with cleaned up the cylinder beautifully.
I am learning a lot doing this the second time, mostly about the mistakes I made the first time.
I also put a couple hours into grinding one cylinder head squish band to help distribute cylinder pressure more evenly. It should run a lot better this summer if I can get it picking up water properly.
1SlowVW said:
I found golf cart wheels at Wal-Mart for $37. Wider, softer, easier to roll over sand and if the worse happens better chance of floating.
In reply to 914Driver :
I'm not sure what the "worse" you refer to is. You actually want the cart to sink when you push the boat in the water. That said it will be getting bigger tires this year and the front handle lowered 6 inches or so.
I also had to ad some reinforcement along the main span to stiffen it up a bit. You can see here the handles too high.
Hey it looks like a motor again!
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