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View Full Version : New drives on Predator!



Craig
02-21-2004, 06:31 AM
Went down to Larry's Speed & Marine yesterday to pick up my drive. Larry took us back and showed us Gary Smiths Skater sporting a pair of shiney new Weisman drives :D Man, are these things bad lookin'! Naturally I forgot my camera :mad: But Bill shot a couple of pic's with his phone camera. Have to get them.
Anyway, these are fully polished. Supposedly the drives save a couple of hundred pounds of weight and use a 150 less horsepower to turn compared to the Dry Sump #6 he had on there. There are no vertical shafts, vertical motion is transferred via gears. All the machine work on these units were out there!
Craig

Wet1
02-21-2004, 08:44 AM
I read about this in Extreme Boat Mag. I was wondering how they made out. How soon before testing? PLEASE get some pics for us!:cool:

twistedpair
02-21-2004, 08:53 AM
This is from the Website (http://www.weismann.net)
http://www.weismann.net/wmdred.jpg

Wet1
02-21-2004, 08:55 AM
:eek!: :eek!: :eek!:
Looks like the cat's azz!:cool:

bigq
02-21-2004, 09:10 AM
Wonder what the price is and what props fit?

HavasuDreamin'
02-21-2004, 11:37 AM
Dang......that is pretty wild. I have never even heard of them until this thread. :cool:

mbrown2
02-21-2004, 11:51 AM
I am just wordering why the APBA banned them....wonder if Mercury had something to with that....sounds like a superior drive to the 6 so Merc pushed some political weight.....Ragamuffin was waxing ass with those drives.

AZKC
02-21-2004, 01:07 PM
And no Hooters trip. Shame on you. :D

Craig
02-21-2004, 03:43 PM
Yeah, I asked ol' Billy boy today about the pic he shot of the drive, he promises he'll shoot them to me today :rolleyes:
The price for the drive is about 10 grand less than a #6 minus a tranny, transmission, that is ;) About 25 G's.
HD, Weisman is actually the company that came up with the dry sump #6. Then Merc incorporated it in production models.
APBA supposedly banned them because they were better and cheaper than a #6 and after enough bitching from Merc, who was a big sponsor, so long Weismans!
AZKC, you assume we didn't stop at Hooters, when in fact we did :p I posted a note about being dowmn your way, but it was a last minute deal, so I didn't think you or Chuck might see it. We'll be back!

Sleek-Jet
02-21-2004, 07:15 PM
You went to Hooters and KC wasn't there???
KC, you feelin' all right there bud??

Craig
02-22-2004, 06:26 AM
Well the quality isn't that great, but when you forget your camera you rely on what's at hand :) These are the drives on Predator....
http://www.justanothertoy.com/photogallery/stuff/weisman.jpg

fourspeednup
02-24-2004, 11:40 PM
You guys have to check out that site, click on the drive pics there's a lot of cool info in there:cool:
(as well as some pics of my home marina)

funkcity
02-25-2004, 03:04 AM
Weismann is a beautiful drive but why did they remove them from the Red 54' Hallett and put on Arnesons?

Jungle Boy
02-25-2004, 03:58 AM
Originally posted by mbrown2
I am just wordering why the APBA banned them....wonder if Mercury had something to with that....sounds like a superior drive to the 6 so Merc pushed some political weight.....Ragamuffin was waxing ass with those drives.
Ya Think?
Merc wants to be the only game in town.

Tom Slick
02-25-2004, 08:34 AM
Weisman actually makes a surface drive that resembles the Arneson surface drive. I believe the Hallet had either Arnesons or Weisman's shaft drives on it, not the Weisman drive like what Predator has now.
You guys are correct about the political crap with the APBA and this drive. Mercury Racing seems to steer that ship, or at least they use too, as they were going to pull there sponsorship from the APBA if the rules weren't changed to require all Super Cat teams to use Mercury #6 drives only. Looks like all that crap is over with, so it will be interesting to see if race teams switch to other drive manufactures this season.

BADBLOWN572
02-25-2004, 08:45 AM
Originally, the 54' Herbst boat had the same Weismann drives that are on the Predator boat. I do not know why they changed them. When I was building my boat, I was taken down to the Weismann shop and shown the prototype drive while still in the R&D phase. I looked into putting one of them on my boat, but the price HURT! They wanted 28k for the drive and transom assembly. This did not include any steering or transmission. I don't know where the price is now, but that is what it was about 2 years ago.
The drive spins a 16 or 17" cleaver (cant remember which) and eats about 40 h.p. from the flywheel to the prop. When I was talking to them, they said that at that point, they had put a 1500 h.p. turbine infront of one and it held up no problem. They said that they would intentionally fly the boat and bring it down without backing off of the throttle and the drive never broke. They say that the gears evenly displace all shock versus a vertical shaft taking all of the impact and then snapping. The force is now spread over multiple parts versus concentrated on one.

bigq
02-25-2004, 09:01 AM
do they have to have a trans in front of them?

BADBLOWN572
02-25-2004, 09:21 AM
There is a need for a tranny to run the Weismann drives.
Here are a couple of pics of the drives from the Herbst 54.
http://www.***boat.com/image_center/data/508/1540Drives1-med.JPG
http://www.***boat.com/image_center/data/508/1540Engines21-med.JPG

OLDRAT
02-25-2004, 09:41 AM
I wonder if the Weismanns are more efficient from take off?
Didn't see any vent tube on the cav plate for aeration to
support those diesels. Possibly a two speed tranny??

welk2party
02-25-2004, 03:32 PM
Those drives are awesome lookin'! Especially on the Herbst boat.

AZKC
02-25-2004, 03:43 PM
Originally posted by Craig
AZKC, you assume we didn't stop at Hooters, when in fact we did :p I posted a note about being dowmn your way, but it was a last minute deal, so I didn't think you or Chuck might see it. We'll be back!
No worries:D I need to hang in here more often and keep up on you big dawgs:D