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We ran our F-2 boat at Lake-X to do most of the testing for APBA and Mercury regarding the 525's and Sportmaster gearcases.

First we tested with the 500's and XR gearcases to get a baseline; we then swapped out the engines for the 525's, keeping the XR gearcases; finally we changed the gearcases to the Sportmasters. The 525's added about three or four MPH over the 500's keeping the XR gearcases; when we changed to the Sportmaster gearcase, we gave back about one MPH that we had gained.

Keep in mind, however, that the APBA also required a weight penalty of, I believe, 400 lbs for the boats using the 525's. We never tested with the weight penalty, because our boat was heavy to begin with. The weight penalty would have cost another one or two MPH, so the combination of weight and Sportmaster gearcase should have negated the 525 HP speed gain. We were able to gain a tremendous advantage by lowering the engines in the boat and using the "shorty" Sportmaster lowers to keep the "X" dimension the same. The lower center of gravity really helped the handling.

All in all the Sportmasters will cost a little bit of top end speed, but the handling advantages, at least on a race boat, are worth it IMHO.

Tom
Total Marine

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I agree that the handling improvements are relevant to the F-2 boats only, and that the 353 does just fine with the XR gearcases. I was just responding to Robert's comments about the F-2 testing results.

There is no way that a pleasure boater is going to run their boat on the ragged edge like the race boats (nor should they!). The XR is the way to go for the pleasure boats.

Tom
Total Marine

captaindave

Thanks guys for wading through this issue with me. All of you have been very helpful and thorough; as always.

D. Tillery

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Troutly:

If memory serves me correctly, and without getting into tenths of MPH, we were getting 91 MPH as a base-line with the 500's and XR drives; we got 94 MPH with the 525's and XR drives and finally 93 MPH with the 525's and Sportmasters. The testing was done at Lake-X, where we always got pretty good speed results (kind of like Robert's slippery Alabama water!). Fuel loads were constant. The 525's just seemed to have a lot more balls than the 500's, they accelerated a lot better.

As I said in a previous post, we never tested with the weight penalty imposed by APBA, because our boat was heavy to begin with. The 525's helped us more than virtually any other boat for this reason. After the testing sessions at Lake-X, we took the boat home and lowered the engines in the boat and went with the "shorty" gearcases. This is what really helped the handling.

The boat was really ready and dialed in for the 2003 season. When Jack Stoerrle died in the Daytona accident, we decided to just park the boat. The speeds were just too fast for open cockpit, deck-to-deck racing. The boat actually went back to Formula where they took the 525's out and tested it with 496 HO's to see if this combination would be good for the future of Factory-2 racing. John Alexander and Brian Smith from Formula reported to me that they were seeing 80 to 81 MPH from this combination. The boat is still sitting at my marina in South Jersey, ready to go. It has the 500's back in it. I've never really tried to sell it. We plan to do some poker runs with it, maybe put some bigger power in it, see how fast we can get it to go! It's still a lot of fun, and I do miss it.

Tom
Total Marine

Rippem

Tom, can you post a pic of the boat?
Pics of 353's with race fairings turn me on.

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We did our own bottom with a full blueprint. The strakes and chines are now so sharp you can practically cut yourself on them! We actually flipped the boat upside down do to do the work. The 382 bottom has a pretty significant hook just before the transom. All of the bottom work was good for at least one mile per hour!

When we got the boat from the factory, it was an 86 MPH boat. All of the tweaking and propeller work got it up there. After the last race during the Key West world championships in '02 when we finished second to the Speedwear Fountain, the GPS showed 92.6 MPH on the high-speed recorder! I know we may have had a little help from tides and currents, but still- that's honkin'!

Wonder what it would do with 600'S?!!!!!

Tom
Total Marine

Rippem

sorry, I thought we were talking 353's.

PhantomChaos

Here's a 382 with a fairing......

VIDEO

PhantomChaos

Anyone watch the video?

pullmytrigger

I watched it Nort .....the very front of the boat looked kinda funny though........needed to be more pointy .....but it was a cool video.......although not as cool as that "coming home from the dam" or whatever video.......the one with the Sunsation in it........now THAT was cool!!!..................doug