A 351w (stroker?) from scratch...

Well I am hoping that between the lighter transmission, lighter manifolds, and lighter stringers/floor I can almost cancel out the weight of the additional speakers, amplifier, tower and battery that is getting added this year, but I will still be gaining some weight, unfortunately for top speed concerns its all moving foward.

Carpet is on order, and I dropped a pile of parts off at the powder coater at lunch today, and that should be the last money I ever spend on this boat.... yeah right..

damn you can tell there was some serious effort there, hellva job!

Joe, looks great- keep up the good work. Love the fact that youre posting pics like that after midnight- been there, done that.

I do hope to get back to the original dog house but I will miss the large plywood platform in the middle of the boat, the big ass flat box has been quite useful. I don't know how much modification it may require to the orignal box to fit the slightly wider exhaust manifolds under the box, and I dont know exactly how high the motor will sit with the new transmission relative to the way it sat with the old transmission. I am hoping worst case I have to remove the vinyl cover cut up some of the fiberglass box and add some relief "humps" to the side of the box with new glass and then I can get enough stretch out of the vinyl to recover over them.

General update: I am taking off this afternoon to get a head start on a long weekend working on the boat, I think by monday I might get to test fit the engine.

Another day in the shop, arrived this morning every thing was dry and the boat is not solid as a rock, no movement no matter where I put my weight. First task to was get out the level and mark the supports to be trimmed.







Then I leveled everything out rough cutting down first with the diamond wheel on a grinder then with a DA with 60 grit to get everything smooth and level. Since I made a lot of dust already I took the opportunity to hit the sides above the floor with the flap disk for 6 to 8 inches all around, as well as remove a bit of leftover bits around where I will hopefully be installing bulkheads up front in the next day or two.







The rest of the day I spent making templates for, cutting, shaping and putting two layers of cloth on the bottom on what will become the back floor sections. There is a lot of work and bits required to do the little access channels around the cradle with the coosa, I think it will work out ok but it was a pIA.









That was it for the day, only took 14 hours or so...

No problem it was already on my to do list, I have plenty of scrap.

Forget Orange County Choppers think we should have Greg & Joe boat shop.

Joe it looks a little thin at the drain hole on the main stringers I am no expert and not worked with coosa, as I live in a 3rd world country could add some of your off cuts each side to add strength, I know you have the engine cradle but the speed your boat will do water gets hard, I found when you are well over 50mph and hit it
and that long trailer ride, just a thought you will know best.

Great stuff

Roger.

Just a design note, the side supports while quite strong and stiff are by design and order of magnitude less so than the stringers. They, are thiner, not bedded, and use half the attachment layering, the theory is they should give a bit under an acute pressure (misaligned bunk, rock, ect) alowing the main stringer to load up before the side support itself cracked, gave way, or caused a stress crack series.

Well I didnt make it to the shop till almost eight between staying late at my paying job and having to get in a workout because I skipped it Sunday. I started out by trimming the edges off the floor pieces I had put two layers of glass on the night before, then for the second night in a row I ended up having to make a hardware store run after nine. This time my dremel took a crap so I decided to go get a flex attachment for my zip saw as I needed to clean out the drains in the secondary stringers as I was never going to be able to access them again after I put down the floor. I also used the flex tool to help fit the smaller bits needed to allow access to the bolts on underside of the cradle for the engine mounts.





All I managed to get down tonight was the back two sections of the passenger side. I cut a layer of epoxy mat to sit on all the mating faces, saturated it with epoxy the put the floor down on top and secured with a lot of stainless screws, you do need to use care to draw down the screws only enough to recess the head and pull the boards together or you will strip out the coosa, I probably stripped two of the 60 or so I put in.






Still two left to go tomorrow but it was one thirty so that was it for the night.

spent a lot of time making marks so I could then make lines where all the supports would be for drilling



Here is the joint between the two boards.



this is what is Underneath the joint

BuffaloBFN wrote: I like seeing the square...it shows in your work! You'll truely have a 'forever' boat when you finish. It's too bad that I can't make GL so we could compare notes. Don't forget to take a nap every now and then.

No naps forecoming, however once I get to work I do at least get to sit down for a while.

Well battery was dead in the camera tonight, but I got the rest of my floor supports installed and the two major bulkheads, as well as trimmed and sanded the floor. Still change my mind about twice a day on what to do with the front area but I think I almost have a plan......

Joe-
Between you and Greg, I have to say I wish I had the skill to pull off a job like you guys have. Actually, I wish I had the time, space, money, OR skill to do what you guys have done.

I have no doubt that you will get it done in time. Just from reading your posts, I can tell you are the kind of guy that will work 24 hours/day right up to the point you have to leave for GL, just to get it done, if need be.

Love the pictures. Keep them coming.

Its just a long planned weekend in Old Forge NY with friends, I am pushing for a return on Sunday early enough to get in a good 8 hour shift of work though.

I am having a good time with the project, it is certainly my first (and probably last in a long time) opportunity to have this kind of budget and workspace (Even though I trashed it). However I still haven't been skiing this year and was hoping to get in a few runs before GL so I would be in shape to pick up a few tips on the boarding and slalom. Hopefully dropping 45lbs in the last three months will partially make up for my lack of water time so far this year, but I kinda doubt it. But by the New England Reunion hopefully me and the boat will be hitting our stride.

Not that kind of a weekend, more of a play whiffle ball home run derby in the side yard, find a bridge to jump off of kinda weekend. Good time for the guys, there were a couple wives and about to be wives around but only because they were duty bound...