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MattM
04-05-2000, 03:22 PM
Forrest, isn't that the pretty rare race deck on that Magnum?

superhatz
04-05-2000, 09:50 PM
Yeah, I want to hear a story about that work of art. What year? Where'd ya get it? engines? etc.

Seriously...one of the top 5 coolest boats ever made.

Top 5 coolest boats ever made http://206.150.187.82/ubb/frown.gif in no order and of course, just my opinion.)

28 SS Cigarette
27 Sport Magnum
18 2+3 Donzi
Single seat hornet (side oiler/V-drive)
Donzi Spitfire

Forrest
04-06-2000, 10:25 AM
OK MattM, even though this is not a Magnum web site, I'll tell you anyway. I bought the boat from guy in South St. Petersburg, FL, about three years ago. It is a turn-key ready to go 1972 Magnum Marine Sport and I paid $14K for it. Since then I have done a number of upgrades to it. It has a couple of well used 350 Chevrolets in it with some mods (CompCams Magnum 280 cams, flat-top forged pistons, Weiand Stealth intakes, Holley marine 600 cfm carbs), coupled to Volvo-Penta 280T's (power trim) with 1.61:1 gear ratios turning three-blade 24" pitch Ultra props. With this setup the engines both turn 5000 to 5100 RPM wide open. Since I bought the boat, I upgraded the original instrument panel with my own design built out of acrylic using Gaffrig gauges and Rex Marine red-anodized stuff. I also replace the Morse binnacle-mount controls with a good used set of Kiekhaefer Zero-Effort controls and then added a Rex Marine red-anodized billet trim switch. Next, I called Magnum Marine searching for the original windshield since it was long gone. They sent me to the American Marine Products. Those are the folks who supplied that windshield to them way back then. They are very nice and helpful people and will give you a lot of advice, but they no longer had the tooling to build that windshield. Knowing that, I ordered a 4'x8'x3/8" piece Lexan from Cadillac Plastics and carefully built it myself using my kitchen oven set at 150-degrees. I figured that with a 4’x8’ sheet of the stuff I would have enough to build three windshields. Was I ever wrong! You should see all the melted and improperly bent pieces of Lexan that I ended up with. Anyway, somehow I pulled it off. When I bought the boat, I knew it had some sort of paint on it like Awlgrip, and come to find out it was Awlgrip, but some idiot did an extremely poor prep job using automotive fillers. They even did the bottom painting Awlgrip over bottom-paint. Any moron that has been around boats for any length of time knows the nothing sticks to bottom paint except more bottom paint. When I bought the boat, I saw some paint pealing on the bottom and knew that it would need to be redone properly soon. Anyway after about a year of use, I brought the boat back to the Hi-dry storage one day and noticed that there was a big hunk of red paint pealing down the starboard side. It was good Awlgrip paint all right, but the primer had totally broken down and you could literally grab an edge and pull the paint off in big sections with ease. Well, at least I can say it was not difficult to remove the old paint! Anyway, I removed all the old paint and fairing fillers. Repaired anything that needed to be repaired using West Systems epoxy. Then applied VC Underwater Performance Epoxy with Teflon to the bottom up to the chine, and Awlgrip epoxy primer and Awlgrip Vivid Red, Insignia White, and Jet Black LP topcoat colors above the chine up to the hull/deck joint. I had enough of everything left over to refinish the Hornet, but that’s another story! Refinishing is such a b-i-t-c-h! I hate it. Enough of that, time to upgrade the interior. The Magnum had a fairly decent interior when I bought it. Yep, it was red/white candy stripe, but it had a couple of generic boat buckets seats in the front that were kind of wimpy for hauling you-know-what over the waves in the Gulf. Enter John Harmon at Bilt-Rite. It just so happens that in addition to being a master with Donzi upholstery, John has built more than a few racing bolster-seats in his time. So while John was working my new front seats, I refinished the hull and I worked on figuring out how to pay him. Anyway John built the seats, fixed some damage on the engine-hatch pad (another story) and put some good heavy-duty foam in the rear seat. I then added a Furuno GPS, Rex Marine Slip-In mufflers, and bought a Rolls Trailer, and did a ton of other stuff that I didn't mention or can’t remember. Next I’m thinking about a set af Kiekhaefer 280S K-planes, and one of these days I plan on repowering with 383 strokers or some other small-block engines and maybe a different drive system (Bravos, SSMIII, or ?). But you know, they may not be the fastest drives around, but those old Volvos have never let me down.

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Forrest

Hornetman
04-06-2000, 10:35 AM
Forrest, Real nice looking machine. How fast will she go?

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Steve A. (Hornetman)

MattM
04-06-2000, 12:15 PM
Thanks Forrest. That deck looks like what I have seen called the race deck with the super low front deck and the scoops on the side. What I have seen called the sport deck is like the blue and white one on E-bay. What gives?

MattM
04-06-2000, 12:18 PM
Oops, looks like the one on E-bay is like your boat. There is another more common deck that doesn't have the scoops though.

Forrest
04-06-2000, 03:09 PM
Yea Matt, there are four decks for the 27 that I know of. Those decks are the Sport, Starfire (F-1 race), a low cabin, and center console. They also built the Magnum 28 Maltiese which had a raised rounded Euro-looking windhield. To give you an idea how few boats they built back then, Magnum built eleven boats total of all models in 1972.
Magnum will still build you a 27 (http://www.magnummarine.com/inside/products/mag_p27.htm) for the right $$$, and they alway want cash! No joke, cash!

Check out the Magnum Patrol Boat (http://www.magnummarine.com/inside/products/mag_ppat.htm)


Hornetman - to answer your question on how fast, not fast enough! Don't know exactly, but I plan on doing some testing very soon. It weighs in at 5800# (loaded) and has a 24-degree deadrise - It needs a lot of ponies to get it moving really fast and the engines are starting to get tired. All that being said, the Magnum 27 is a phonominaly smooth boat at speed in rough water.
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Forrest

[This message has been edited by Forrest (edited 04-06-2000).]

Hornetman
04-07-2000, 11:42 AM
Forrest, What's the ballpark weight of your Magnum, including trailer. I'm trying to figure out if my 1993 Explorer with 190,000 miles will pull it? I'm thinking about going to look at the 27' Magnum on e-bay, it's almost on my way home from the office.


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Steve A. (Hornetman)

seano
04-07-2000, 02:16 PM
Forrest, The magnum looks sweet! I will be curious to see how fast it goes as well...keep us posted. I'm currently finfishing up a complete restoration of a 75 28ss. New interior, paint, rigging---everything! I just was just relieved of quite a few sheckles for a pair of NEW 2000 350 MAG MPIs with Bravo I performance drives. We raised the X-dimension 2 inches(hope it gets on plane!). I think I am a realist, and will probably see 65 mph. Any thoughts? She weighs 6500# dry.