Thread:

Fun speed boat w/v drive

Hey everyone,
I'm new to this site and I'm planning on building a little speed boat to bring along to the river with my cabin cruiser. I saw on this site that someone posted pics of what looked like a small pickle fork but it had an inboard on it. I have seen the pickle forks with the outboards as well. I think I could get more performance with better parts though by buying a salvaged crotch rocket or snowmobile engine and throw it in a hull and have some fun. I'm not planning on setting any water speed records or anything. What are all your thoughts?

I plan on keeping the boat pretty small..just a two seater maybe 10-12 ft long.
Thanks everyone!

I guess I should also state that I am an engineer and quite handy with building and able to pick up on a steep learning curve if this would have been a concern.

Nah...I would like to build it myself as a project.
Looks like a fun one though.
The more I think about it I think I will be going with the V drive. Unless you guys can really persuade me to think twice about it. I think I would rather look for parts for a 1990 or newer crotch rocket motor vs fixing up a cheaper outboard. Not a huge fan of dinking around with them.

Mike abbot [abbot craft] makes a nice piece he goes by sangster on here. If ya need a # pm me. Andy

I think the picture I saw on this site was actually one he posted. I'll get in contact with him for some info I suppose.
I will need some help with all of the drive hardware more than likely (Struts, drive shafts, props, tranny, etc) so I'll probably start a new thread. Should I do that thread in the v-drives forum?

would it be possible to do a direct drive from the motor or do I need to have a transmission in it? I noticed those are a bit pricey...Maybe I was looking at the ones for the 500hp+ motors. Do they have transmissions for smaller boats like I'm planning? I looked up a Kawasaki Ninja 600 and saw they get about 110 hp at 13k rpms. That seems fast. Would I be better off with a touring bike style engine with more HP less rpms (brute power vs speed power)?

Yknow back around 98 I posted a thread like this I wanted to put a v-drive in a seadoo sportster and drop a 4.3 v-6 in it ,all I got was a bunch of negative crap and youre effin crazy how times change huh?

haha yep...
I'm starting to feel like these forums are for super high performance boats (which would make sense considering the website name)
I was just hoping I could get some help figuring out what parts I would need and maybe get an estimate on the cost etc.
The price of the transmissions are kinda steering me away but like I said I think I could get by with just direct drive.
And also I'm not looking to be going at near take-off speeds, just something to cruise around on the river with when we're out in the cabin cruiser. Somewhat like a jetski but it's a small speed boat.

Awesome..We'll have to keep in contact then to compare findings.
I am thinking now that the best option would be for me to do a direct drive... I also thought about just buying a trashed jet ski and mount all the necessary parts in the bottom of the boat but IMO jet drives are way too energy inefficient (you spend way more $$$ on gas than is necessary)

Just my opinion, but I think a 1000cc would be a better choice, your are going to be spinning the motor pretty hard, those 600 make the 110 at like 12k rpms. They are pretty peaky and you would be "on the pipe" most of the time. I would think the 1000 would actually be more manageable. I see GSXR 1000 hayabusa 1300 and Kawasaki ZX10 motors running in the legend cars. Those should be fairly easy to come by. Sport bike riders donate their bikes to salvage yards with alarming frequency. I would love to hear about your project if you move ahead.