Reply With Quoteit's one cool ride came out nice thanks for the ride
and as I figured, it's a bizarre ride. It wasn't scary or anything, but if you're used to a bottom with any V to it, it'll get your attention.
I didn't play with the cav plates too much as I was more concerned with getting a feel for the boat, taking care of minor leaks, tightening loose fasteners, etc. I was pleased it fired up and ran pretty well right off the trailer. Didn't have to touch the carb or timing. The carb is a vacuum sendary Holley 750 I built from spare parts I had in the garage. It was one I experimented with milling the airhorn on a couple years ago when I was bored. Added a secondary metering plate and a couple custom J tubes and that was about it.
Launched off the beach Saturday and took her out. Pretty flat water, so I just made laps upriver and back getting the feel for it, and giving it a little more each pass. First off, it's weird seeing the discharge from the nozzle up so high! It creates a pretty big wake until it gets on plane. A little unnerving, cuz it doesn't have much freeboard. From a dead stop it'll move quick and the 390 has plenty of torque to get it out of the hole. Once you're moving just a little throttle gets you on plane and that's when the "fun" starts. There's a certain feel to a V hull.... a stability, that you don't have with this. Like I said, it's not unsafe, just really different. Once on plane, it likes to hunt (if you've driven dragsters you know what I mean). DON'T turn the wheel and expect to turn. You drive this with your foot... even more than a normal jet.
With the GPS in hand, I accelerated while staying in the primaries. Looked down....44.3. Hmmm, not bad, but it has a little bog I need to adjust out. It was time to open the secondaries, and all I can say is I'm VERY happy with the power that the 390 puts out. So much so that when the secondaries open up, the pump cavitates it's ass off! The way it's set up now, it's just on the verge of unloading the pump at speed and when I put some power to it it blows out. It was running 40 at around 3300 and when I nail it, it hits over 4500 but stops accelerating. Oh, and yes a moderately choppy surface unloads the pump pretty hard.
Crossing wakes is another fun exercise. I have a LOT of setup work to do on it, but I know I have at least another 10-15 mph in it just if I can keep the pump loaded. At some point I'm going to have to consider making a loader, but that'll happen after I get the setup dialed in. Now I just have to figure out HOW to dial it in!
All in all, it was a great project and it really is a ton of fun to drive. I love the hydroplaning (as opposed to "cutting" water like a V) feel it has, and the bottom slapping the water when it's on plane and wants to bring the nose up. Truly fun ancient stuff.
it's one cool ride came out nice thanks for the ride
One thing I found with mine is to be careful how you get out of the throttle. It wants to pick the back end up and bow steer right now if you get out of it too quickly. Go figure........I guess a flat is a flat......
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