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Drove My Boat, Wow!!!

Laurie S.

Laurie S.

Well-Known Member
Staff member
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Just got back from a week in Mexico playing with my new boat, "Whale Shark." We had a lot of "fun" hauling it down there and then spent about three days figuring out what was what and fixing what needed fixing. Then, on Tuesday, we launched it. OMG, I never thought I would say this, but a Chevy big block is a freaking awesome engine! What a sweet sound when we fired them up! The engines have Edelbrock Victor Jr. racing manifolds and heads and I think there might be modifications that we can't see. Yesterday, we took it out again and my friends opened it up a bit more, like 6000 out of the 8000 rpm on the gauge. The beast was flying! I have driven it, but a lot closer to the 3500 rpm mark. I learned how to back up and recover something in the water, which also was docking practice. And, I played with finding the flat water rather than slamming into the waves. My main problem is seeing over the bow, so my friend is going to make me a platform to give me a little boost.

We went diving both days off the boat and it's easy to get back on. Had a little decompression sickness problem on Sunday, but not while diving off my boat. I'll post pictures this weekend but I'm too pooped right now.

It really was funny when another boat owner said we couldn't beat him in a race. We got him to the point of saying, let's bet, and my friend asked can your boat do 85 mph? The guy's jaw almost hit the ground. I think he figured a lowly female wouldn't have a bada$$ boat. He said he had a 27-foot something or other and I said, hmm, okay, well I have a Baja 38 Marine Special with 1200 horsepower. He backed down really fast. LOL!!!
 
Very cool Laurie. Sounds like fun.
85 mph on the water must be a blast. My boats tops out just shy of 60 if its calm out and that freaks out my wife when we get her going.

What did you lose in the water that you had to retrieve?

We definitely needs some pictures.

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Congrats!

Yep, the sound of a Chebbie big block marine engine is hard to beat - I had the same reaction when I first fired mine up. They will haul the mail too - running your top end combo and getting 600 per side in marine dress, I'd say you have 540 ci monsters in there. Tough to go much above that and keep reliability in a marine app - at least w/o superchargers. 6000 is probably going to be close to the top rpm you should see. Darned few BBC marine engines running much more than that (reliability again).

85 is a good result from that combo. As you'll learn, that top speed is never the same - water conditions, amount of crap you're carrying and passengers have a big effect on speed. There's a 36 Outlaw here that tops 100 - but he has blown 598's in it, and runs 1200 hp per side - dyno proven. So, once 85 becomes passe' (and it will), you know it can be done...
 
You got me beat by double! To be fair though, I only have one 350 V8 engine and it's prop'd to pull 5+ barefooters! I enjoy having big guys say that my boat won't pull them up. I always ask if they want full throttle and then watch as their arms become disconnected from the torso :nut

Looking forward to the pics, sounds like it was a great time.
 
85 mph, wow! I was riding in my friends blown BBC Eliminator when he got it up to 90 mph. What a feeling of speed and power. I crossed that one off my Bucket List.

Laurie, is the price of fuel any different down there? I hope it's less.
 
"RapidRabbit" said:
Very cool Laurie. Sounds like fun.
85 mph on the water must be a blast. My boats tops out just shy of 60 if its calm out and that freaks out my wife when we get her going.

What did you lose in the water that you had to retrieve?

We definitely needs some pictures.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


We didn't actually lose anything, my teacher was throwing one of the fenders off and said pretend it's a body. He would throw it off at speed and then they would yell "man overboard!" and have me circle back to get it.
 
"apollard" said:
Congrats!

Yep, the sound of a Chebbie big block marine engine is hard to beat - I had the same reaction when I first fired mine up. They will haul the mail too - running your top end combo and getting 600 per side in marine dress, I'd say you have 540 ci monsters in there. Tough to go much above that and keep reliability in a marine app - at least w/o superchargers. 6000 is probably going to be close to the top rpm you should see. Darned few BBC marine engines running much more than that (reliability again).

85 is a good result from that combo. As you'll learn, that top speed is never the same - water conditions, amount of crap you're carrying and passengers have a big effect on speed. There's a 36 Outlaw here that tops 100 - but he has blown 598's in it, and runs 1200 hp per side - dyno proven. So, once 85 becomes passe' (and it will), you know it can be done...
Click to expand...


Yep, they are 540 ci monsters. We had to teach ourselves how to flush the engines so the first time I heard them was during the flushing. They hadn't been started since February and they stumbled a bit before they caught. Then, it was music to my ears. My boyfriend was sleeping in his camper when we fired them up right outside his bedroom window. That ended his nap. LOL
 
I forgot to mention that last week when we brought the boat to my house before leaving for Mexico in the morning, I had forgotten the trailer license plate at my office. I didn't want to put it on until we were ready to go because it is a permanent plate and I was afraid someone would steal it. So, while Russ is parking the rig in front of my house after we had worked on it for several hours (chains didn't fit), I noticed that the plate wasn't on the trailer. It was about 8 pm and very dark. There was no way we wanted to unhook my truck again and I didn't want to haul the boat in the morning without a plate, even to my office. So, that left Murphy who has sat since March. To make matters worse, I'm nightblind, and 68 original headlights aren't the brightest bulbs out there. But, my trusty steed fired up on the third try (normal) and ran like a dream to my office and back. I even got some nice compliments along the way. Russ had never seen the car and he was blown away by it, which was rather fun, too.
 
It's a 180-gallon tank and it came with about 60 gallons in there. I filled it up and after two days, it was down a quarter tank. We burned most of it on Wednesday because after diving my friends asked me what I wanted to do and said, let's cruise the coast! That's when Russ really opened it up. He almost bounced me out of the bolstered seat. I think fuel is a little cheaper down there, but I have to do some figuring. You buy it in liters and so many pesos per liter.
 
"Laurie S." said:
Yep, they are 540 ci monsters. We had to teach ourselves how to flush the engines so the first time I heard them was during the flushing. They hadn't been started since February and they stumbled a bit before they caught. Then, it was music to my ears. My boyfriend was sleeping in his camper when we fired them up right outside his bedroom window. That ended his nap. LOL
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Whoohoo! I bet the twin 540s sound mean as heck, but on the hose they are LOUD. I draw all the machine heads in the area when I fire it up outta the water. Project for this winter is heads / cam. I "need" another 100 hp.
 
"Laurie S." said:
It's a 180-gallon tank and it came with about 60 gallons in there. I filled it up and after two days, it was down a quarter tank. We burned most of it on Wednesday because after diving my friends asked me what I wanted to do and said, let's cruise the coast! That's when Russ really opened it up. He almost bounced me out of the bolstered seat. I think fuel is a little cheaper down there, but I have to do some figuring. You buy it in liters and so many pesos per liter.
Click to expand...

That's not bad at all for a 38. Get thyself to a poker run or fun run - WFO for 30 minutes will help out with that excess gasoline in the tank :yah
 
"apollard" said:
Whoohoo! I bet the twin 540s sound mean as heck, but on the hose they are LOUD. I draw all the machine heads in the area when I fire it up outta the water. Project for this winter is heads / cam. I "need" another 100 hp.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, they stirred my soul! I was like when Trouble fired up for the first time. The ground was shaking!
 
"apollard" said:
That's not bad at all for a 38. Get thyself to a poker run or fun run - WFO for 30 minutes will help out with that excess gasoline in the tank :yah
Click to expand...

We'll be looking for a glassy day on the ocean like it was on Sunday, then we'll open it up. It actually was really choppy on Wednesday so we were doing a little wave bouncing.
 
I put the ski boat into suspended animation 2 weekends ago. Very sad indeed :skul
 
Winter sucks. We will be winterizing our boat first week in November. Might still get a few more trips in. It's 80 here today. Weird weather.

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