New member to the family

That is such a nice looking boat.

It was a great day... She never ran better...
It was a sad day...

Reid and Nautique John to the rescue... Thank God for good old blue...

http://s271.photobucket.com/albums/jj140/wknonwtr/?action=view¤t=TowIn283Dead.flv



Matt

I love the 540, Reid. Mine has all the sport/M components (except for the engine, of course). 6 speed manual as well. The thing is solid as a rock and a blast to drive. I think the 4.4 is rated at around 300 hp and 280ish ft/lbs. Shouldn't be a problem tugging the Muskrat around.

I drove our Durango (with < 30,000 and only 2 trannies at the time) to test drive a '98 540 with 65,000 on the clock. The 540 was soooo solid that when I got back into the Durango, the damn thing felt as if it was falling apart (which it was, slowly).

That proved to me 2 things - I'll never own another Chrysler product, even though I think they are very nicely styled and I'd rather drive a used BMW than a new anything else for the same money.

I have been leasing a 2 year old BMW for 3 year span as a company car for the last 6 years. My current car is up in March and I think I can sneak a '06 550 under my budget! WHOO HOOO!

Damn, you boys gots the toys!

87BFN owner wrote: I like to hit speeds of 150 and above in a car on a regular basis. I boat I am good with 60MPH.

What do you have that will do 150 and above?

My 2002 BMW 540i is electronically limited to 155.

Brian, Good point with the stop watch! If the stop watch indicates 1/10 seconds, it would be very easy to come up with a speed taken out to thousands!

Pete, great work like Steve said. Thanks. The one thing that really bothers me is how much smarter and more mechanically inclined I obviously was in my previous life. I can't seem to find even half that speed today.    

124.915 MPH I know they didn't have GPS back then so I don't know how they were able to get that accurate!

Reid, I found some info on the drive train that Gar Wood used. Look like he set up the Packards like I thought.

Popular Mechanics, 1934, pp.536-9, 124A)
"Miss America X it was Wood's idea to use four twelve-cylinder motors not as four distinct motors but as two power plants. He wanted them in banks, two in line on the starboard side and two in line on the port side. Four motors had been hooked together before but with clutches between and the gear boxes forward.

This arrangement required dangerously long propeller shafts at the speeds Miss America's propeller wheels were to be turned. Wood wanted the gear boxes in the middle of the banks, giving his boat short, sturdy shafts that would stand the strain. In effect, what Wood wanted was to make two motors function as a single unit, with the crankshafts of each bank synchronized and turning as one shaft! Engineers said the oscillations of the shafts would be so great as to wreck the gear boxes with the motors running at any appreciable speed. But Wood stuck to his idea which was to spline the engine shafts in each bank in a specially designed and specially constructed gear box. Each gear box was to be the heart of each tandem, with two shafts fitting into a main driving gear through a splined hub which was common to both. And it worked."

JoeinNY wrote: Well I am officially jealous that i wont be up to blow anything for at least 4 months yet..

67nautique312 wrote: Reid, Sorry to hear your luck....Damn that sucks!!!

Thanks Paul, as you're being nice referring to it as luck. We've chauked it up to stupidity, as we weren't holding enough oil pressure for some reason, but we just kept banging on it. We got this 358 longblock for $450 and swapped everything over so we can continue to run it, and then we're gonna build another 283 this spring.

Pete, that's some engine set-up I had there, wasn't it. It's been so long ago I can't remember what kind of drive system I was using. Do you recall? I can't say if I had them in tandem or what, but it would fly. You tend to loose a lot of memory going from one life to the next.          

Wheres the ski pole?

we have a 283 block for you down here, stop by and pick it up when you pick up your new boat!   P.S. Dont forget to bring my GT-40 heads!!

Yessir, she blew up. Broke a rod in half and then proceed to kill the block, the crank and a piston. And while I wasn't in the boat at the time (thank the Lord), Nautique John and I could hear it coming up the lake and all of a sudden we heard the engine die and went out near the water to see what we could see. About that time my phone rings and it's Nautique Matt saying to come get him. Tell you more later.   

62 wood wrote: Pete, How you say ..... Kaaaaaabaaaang?!??

Reid has been awful quite lately!!