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DonziFreak
12-05-2007, 11:49 PM
I figured this might be something intresting to show you guys! This is our race boat, we flipped her upside down to re-work the bottom and make it as smooth as a baby's bottom. She's 16ft long by 4ft wide and will run about 110 MPH in race conditions while pulling off 4-6g turns. Since we have owned this particular one for the past few months (about three) it has already been wrecked twice....which is bad luck on our part, we lost about 4ft of the front of the left sponson and replaced it overnight at the race site (don't ask how, it was a miracle) and rolled it completely over and back up-right once....but now shes up-side down and gettin some much needed attention.....this particular class runs the old Merc carburated 120 Cubic Inch V-6 blocks with Speedmaster gearcases on a stock Mercury mid-section.....she's been stripped down to the bones tho (because we had to pull her off the trailer and flip her all by hand......cranes are overrated anyways) :biggrin:

I will try to get some better pics in the sunlight

WA-LO
12-06-2007, 06:54 AM
I went to school in tennessee with Gary and Eric Pugh they are very
tallented boat builders and cool people.

DonziFreak
12-06-2007, 11:20 AM
what a small world! this was actualy Gary's personal boat, he ran it as the Hooters boat for about 5 years, and then sold it to us this past June

rustnrot
12-06-2007, 01:32 PM
Thanks for posting that! Mike Yobe of Tavares, FL (ya'll recall he did the mahogany decked 16 Donzi) is restoring a vintage hydro 5L and hopes to race it in the vintage class this coming summer at the Gold Cup in Detroit.

Glad to see more hydros on the board!

cutwater
12-06-2007, 02:09 PM
110 MPH out of 120 cu! Hydros are awesome, I bet that's a rush. Cool boat DonziFreak.

DonziFreak
12-06-2007, 04:35 PM
I dont mean to correct you guys, but this is not a hydro, it is actualy reffered to as a "Tunnelboat" and is basicly a scaled down and streamlined version of a catamaran, also known as a cat-on-crack....that being said tho, don't think "massive" as in a offshore boat, as i said before, it's only 16ft long and 4ft wide,think of it as nascar on water, except the turns are only about 20-30ft wide from entrance to exit and you're pulling 4-6g's.....

WA-LO
12-06-2007, 04:40 PM
I remember the Pughs used Koenig German race engines on the 120s real
impressive but thats been 20 years they probably use somthing quite
differnt now.

DonziFreak
12-06-2007, 06:20 PM
we are running "stock" Mercury V-6 120 CU-inch blocks....the only modifications we are allowed is .30 boring and some stronger pistons, other than that, they are fishing blocks

WingWing
12-10-2007, 09:04 AM
neat shots JM. SST120 is a great class, I am actually sniffing around the possibility of getting into it myself. Cant afford champ, and supersport is not loud enough for me LOL.

DonziFreak
12-10-2007, 06:42 PM
I'm guessing you're somewhere in Florida then? Super Sport is a cool class, but the class just ain't big enough for me. I don't run 120, I'm not JM :biggrin: 45 is gonna be plenty of fun for me!

smoothie
12-11-2007, 10:58 AM
Heres a vid of the SST-120 class in action....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvplD8EW6e0

DonziFreak
12-11-2007, 05:01 PM
Heres a vid of the SST-120 class in action....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvplD8EW6e0


WOW! I was at this race, we won it in the 45 class!

The SST-120 out ahead of everyone is our good friend Shaun Torrente. He runs with the "Big-Dogs" now in F-1 but agreed to run that boat for that weekend. The pervious driver of that boat, John Broge, was paralyzed at that very same race last year....so it was definatly a special moment when Shaun crossed that finish line to take the victory....

smoothie
12-11-2007, 07:16 PM
Then this be you....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaei9-oSpY0&feature=related

DonziFreak
12-11-2007, 09:27 PM
if you watch during the first ten seconds, you see the first two boats come by, then a white one with blurred orange, that would be our boat, but my brother driving

smoothie
12-12-2007, 08:25 AM
What do you guys use for power trim on SST-45 motors ??? Im trying to rig something up on my 1956 Mark 55.

DonziFreak
12-12-2007, 11:02 AM
We use small rams built by Terry Rinker, he races F1 and his family owns or owned Rinker boats....don't know if they still do, but I'm assuming they do.....but last I heard from him last time I needed to buy a ram off of him was that he told me he had the parts to build maybe 5 more rams, but that was a few months ago.....Your best bet is going to boatracingfacts.com and posting a classified for one. The guys there always have spare parts.

smoothie
12-12-2007, 11:18 AM
So then there is a hydraulic pump for the rams mounted inside the boat?

DonziFreak
12-12-2007, 02:25 PM
Yes. In the 45, we run a OMC pump....not sure of the size, we just call it by "the medium one" since it has the second biggest reservoir for the hydraulic fluid of the pumps we use....On the 120, we run 2 standard Merc pumps, 1 for the out and in, and 1 for the hydraulic lift plate (up and down)

FlatRacer, aka BarrelBack
12-17-2007, 07:25 PM
Carlos: I'm curious. Why did you choose to race outboard tunnels? Did you sit down and examine the pros and cons of various types of race boats, or was it more of an emotional decision?
Was it that you were familiar with that type of boat, or were you suddenly bitten by that particular bug?

Eric

DonziFreak
12-17-2007, 08:13 PM
Well, when I was a kid, my father used to race off-shore, and that is really the world I grew into. But back in the mid 90's, with the death of a dear friend, we quit off-shore racing and my father ended up buying a used SST-45 tunnel hull....and thats when the obsession began.....we've been racing em since 1996 and I basicly know everything about these little things...which makes it harder to run anything else simply because it would take me FOREVER to re-learn a completely diffrent thing...perfect example, our jump to the bigger class of tunnel-racing....we have NO CLUE about half the sh*t on these things, because its soooo diffrent.....a new world. But I have been thinking about, and would definatly consider a oppurtunity to go off-shore racing in a 38 ZR-C....thats one of the goals I would like to accomplish sometime in my lifetime. But who knows what the future holds, heh? :biggrin.:

Carlos

FlatRacer, aka BarrelBack
12-17-2007, 10:50 PM
Yeah, but why tunnels? Was it that they were what was happening in your immediate area, or were other other reasons? Did safety capsules have anything to do with the decision to go OPC?

Eric

DonziFreak
12-18-2007, 06:41 AM
Well, yes and no... We didn't decide to get into tunnels just because they had safety capsules, that is just one of the advantages of racing one. It was more of a affordability issue. We couldn't afford offshore racing, and, after our friend's accident, didn't have the will for it anymore. But OPC racing is affordable....atleast SST-45 is.....can't say the same thing for SST-120!

WingWing
12-18-2007, 02:41 PM
I'm guessing you're somewhere in Florida then? Super Sport is a cool class, but the class just ain't big enough for me. I don't run 120, I'm not JM :biggrin: 45 is gonna be plenty of fun for me!

My mistake Carlos, and yes I am from florida. Cool videos and 45 looks like a really fun class to run; lots of competition, affordability, speed. I know what you mena about SS being not big enough; basically 4 boats if that running. Its easy to say what could be done to fix it, but I have to give some credit to Danny for all the work he has put into it trying to get it off the ground. Good luck with your 120 project.

FlatRacer, aka BarrelBack
12-18-2007, 02:53 PM
Ah, yes... affordability. That's what keeps me out of inboard racing these days. When I was young and stupid I didn't have a problem maxing out my credit cards to make a race, but life's a bit different now. Some of us are pushing hard for the creation of a spec engine entry level ski boat class. One where an engine program won't guarantee bankruptcy.

Eric

DonziFreak
12-18-2007, 03:54 PM
Some of us are pushing hard for the creation of a spec engine entry level ski boat class. One where an engine program won't guarantee bankruptcy.

Eric

Good luck with that....thats exactly what they tried to do with 45 and 120. But! No matter what you do, the fastest are usauly going to be the ones that break their pockets for it.....which we did, and it almost caused a lot of heartache for us, but atleast we are at the top of our game.

Carlos

WingWing
12-21-2007, 02:10 PM
Good luck with that....thats exactly what they tried to do with 45 and 120. But! No matter what you do, the fastest are usauly going to be the ones that break their pockets for it.....which we did, and it almost caused a lot of heartache for us, but atleast we are at the top of our game.

Carlos

Diaond marine is in your neck of the woods and for the quality of work they do, they are surprisingly reasonable... as far as quality motor builders go. good luck this upcoming season.

DonziFreak
12-21-2007, 09:17 PM
We do our motor rebuilds in-house, and so far, its worked out for us! :wink: