Update an old boat and make it good enough to be a daily training boat

[Wish]

BTW. @Thager use of the cup holder as a mounting point for the ZO gauge is brilliant. He matched the gray vinyl perfectly. Looks factory standard.

[jhughes]

How about this: a gallery/diary area for people to highlight their old ski tugs and modifications? Make it user generated content. A lot of us slalom nuts are also boat nuts as well- I know boat tech is one of my favorite parts of this sport. Diary might include:

- Speed control setup

- Other mods to boat

- Pros/cons

- Handling characteristics, tracking and wake and spray considerations

 

A user generated "guide" to used slalom boat options.

[Horton]

@jhughes you said this whole thing was not interesting but you keep posting. ...

[rockdog]

Good idea though @horton.

[jhughes]

@Horton It's a topic near and dear so I'm trying to help it be interesting ;)

[Deke]

I'm with with you there @jhughes. I've had a good boat and water for 15 years. However, access to a course and quality of water has been a real issue. Unfortunately I've had to considerably change my expectations regarding how far I'm going in this sport.

 

@Horton the greatest barrier to entry is not the boat, but I would love to see this project unfold.

[Horton]

@Deke the cost of a boat is ONE of many barriers and it is different for everyone. In the southern 1/2 of California access is ridiculously hard and expensive.

[Deke]

@Horton agreed.

[rawly]

Saw a 97 Nautique 196 for 8k , and a low hour Excalibur motor on ski it again. If I didn't recently upgrade to a Z. O. 196 , I would buy that boat and engine , then send it to @Jody_Seal for a re power and ZO upgrade. From what I've read , that boat has the best slalom wakes of all the boats out there.

[rockdog]

@6balls and @Wish and I would concur with that @rawly. TSC1 is a ripping hull.

[Andy]

@thanger that is a very clean application. I'm interested in the conversion.

[Greg Banish]

Is this the part where I cue the discussion about boosted, smaller engines? I still firmly believe that a super/turbocharged 4 or 6 cylinder engine would work really well in a slalom tug. Making 300HP is EASY these days, and the engines are about 300-400 lighter than an old iron 5.7L Chevy.

[E_T]

@Greg Banish superchargers for sure. To much heat in turbo set ups. I could go for a blower on a all aluminum 7.4L

[Stevie Boy]

I wonder how many boats are out there, with a broken engine, that have just been parked up because the owner has no funds to repair, that could be a good place to start from, also probably boats just sitting on racks at boat storage places, that have not moved for a long time, there's a lot of people with money buy and then their circumstances change or the novelty wears off.

I bet there is a lot of boats out there just waiting for a enthusiast.

[GregHind]

@Greg Banish speed control will not work well with an engine with any lag.

 

Also PP is designed around the torque curve and power to weight of a normal engine

 

Things get harder when you have lots of horsepower in a light weight setup. I've done it but pp is not tuned for it.

 

I'd love to try installing PP on a boosted engine though. I've done inboards, I/o, outboards and jets but never boosted.

 

 

 

 

[Horton]

Once a turbo engine is at speed. .. would there be lag? A matter of tuneing?

[gt2003]

@Horton , do I recall a thread from quite a while back where you had an older model ski tug hanging around the house? Could that be your project?

[Greg Banish]

@GregHind modern turbo systems don't really have any significant lag. (I do this for a living) We run cruise control all the time on boosted engines. ZO is just a CAN based speed regulator. All it needs to do is set a target for the drive-by-wire ECU to aim for and correct toward based on GPS feedback.

 

Temperature is not an issue either other than the need to tool up a jacketed (water cooled) turbine housing to meet USCG surface temp requirements. Roush/Indmar have proven that the TVS superchargers work just fine on the water too. You are floating on an infinitely large intercooler supply, so cooling the air charge should be really easy.

 

This project doesn't need to make the 600+hp that a boosted V8 would make if we are able to take 300-400# out of the boat. Just making the same 300hp (out a a smaller base engine) that we are used to from countless older slalom tugs will feel like 400+ at the lighter weight. The smaller engines also rev higher, so you can trade prop pitch and RPM for a better hole shot while still having headroom to support barefoot top speeds. If you were happy with a 700# 350/351 that made 280-320hp before, you should love the response of a modern engine that weighs less than 300#.

[Horton]

@Greg Banish one thing that might be hard is getting ZO to feel right with the different throttle response and rpm level. Might take a lot of R&D.

 

@Jody_Seal comments?

[DW]

@JTH: anytime you change the throttle position, there can potentially be a small amount of lag or response delay until the turbo spools up that much more. It would be very interesting to feel a well calibrated turbo application as a skier will be very sensitive to the power application. I would envision the turbo lag potentially feeling similar to some of the alternate settings on ZO. The faster you are able to spin the turbo, the less the lag would be. Turbo systems are pretty well advanced these days, although I think a supercharger might be an option that would match the duty cycle better, either way a fun potential option to dig in to. Yes, tuning/calibrating would be a significant part of dialing in a turbo application.

 

Greg makes a good point on effect of weight, the 325# I pulled out of my boat has made quite an effect on handling, response and feel of the boat (part of it is the CG location moving forward significantly in my case).

[E_T]

Just run small dual liner turbos. Set properly won't lag at all

[Horton]

@E_T listen to @dw he could even fix your Warp drive

[E_T]

@horton do you think @DW could figure out how to put a dbw servo on a 4150 throttle body?

[DW]

@ET: you are correct on dual turbos. btw - electrons are my least favorite thing to tinker with, much better on the hardware side...

 

@JTH: getting a very different engine to "feel" right would fall right in to the same game as getting PP to feel like ZO (and they are basically trying to adjust the very same item and using the same speed signal to do it (satellites). In other words, can you make a Porsche turbo feel like a Corvette in a drag race?

[E_T]

@dw I dispise Devils magic. What do you think of this

[DW]

@ET: Awesome, very nice. Might work best at just a "tad" more RPM than typical 34/36 speeds!

[E_T]

@dw I agree with that, way to long of runners on that manifold. I am trying to figure out the best and most simple for all motors to swap to MPFI and dbw. (Some dodge guy on yellow bullet riged that up).

[Greg Banish]

@Horton ZO cruise control really just boils down to torque control. (Torque is directly proportional to prop thrust/acceleration at a fixed speed) As long as one knows the torque map for the engine and how to get from one torque value to another (whether by ETC movement, camshaft phasing, or boost change), it's pretty simple to control. All ZO needs to do is request more or less engine torque to execute control. It is up to the ECU to figure out how to deliver that +/- torque increment to control vehicle speed. This is only sorta rocket science, but it's routine for any automotive engine controls engineer these days. We just need to bring the marine guys up to speed. Pun intended.

[Horton]

@Greg Banish I understand in theory but a 5.7 200 does not feel the same as a 6.0 200. If it were simple why is the 6L often so much better?

[Horton]

@Greg Banish I understand in theory but a 5.7 200 does not feel the same as a 6.0 200. If it were simple why is the 6L often so much better?

[DanE]

@Horton You don't generally run the same prop on th 5.7 as the 6.0 for starters.

Different props alone make a huge difference in feel.

[Greg Banish]

@Horton Simple... The guys who calibrated them only tuned it strictly based on blade angle, not torque. (Caveman style, by today's standards in the auto industry) Most marine 6.0's don't even use the variable cam angle controls, even though there is significant potential for benefit there. The marine industry has been very slow to adopt new engine technologies.

 

If you use modern controls, you can make either one feel however you want as long as you are asking for anything less than 100% of max available torque at the time. Obviously, the upper limit is the upper limit if you're forced WOT. Since we don't run truly WOT much, having the ability to dial torque up/down at part load (cruise control) is pretty straight forward.

 

You can change the shape of the throttle response curve below 100% too. So if you want something that "feels sporty", just make driver request of 10% throttle lever input equate to 90% of available engine torque and hang on. A bit extreme of an example, but absolutely possible.

[Horton]

If marine industry = caveman does your solution cost $$$$$$ more?

[DaveD]

@horton, because they know our addiction to going around little orange balls will cause us to pay the extra money.

[ozski]

3.0 Turbo diesel in my Jeep has loads of twist, reckon it would make a great boat motor.

[oldjeep]

Not sure if the Fiat 3.0 would have enough power. It is relatively weak compared to the 5.7L (Hemi) gas and even less quick than the v6 engine alternative in the Chrysler lineup. Top that with the premium that you pay for it and it doesn't make much sense as a boat engine (or a suv/truck engine for that matter)

[Greg Banish]

The marine industry in funny compared to the auto industry. Margins and markups are astronomically higher on water. The auto industry has beaten suppliers and OEMs down to almost ridiculously low margins by comparison due to the competition between both manufacturers and suppliers.

 

Certainly the raw material cost for some of the newer systems is higher than the current state of the art in the marine world, but the price we pay for a "marine version" of anything does not justify the change in that parts' Bill Of Materials that makes it marine worthy. It's just markup for the most part, largely due to small volumes and high demand.

[ozski]

@oldjeep Did you look at the torque numbers, dont agree the 3.0 is weak at all. Outside the box yes.

[oldjeep]

The torque is fine, but the tow ratings are 4000lbs less than a 5.7 hemi and about equal to the little gas v6. The two people I know who bought 3.0 diesel rams sold them the next year because the reality of the little diesel didn't live up to the hype and they had paid a premium for the anemic performance.

[ozski]

Better yet, the 3.0L EcoDiesel equipped 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited is able to tow 7,200lbs and while I don’t have a 7,200lb trailer, I do have a 5,500 pound horse trailer that I use for all of my towing exercises. The EcoDiesel pulled my small horse trailer very nicely and the big torque allowed for smooth, easy acceleration while handling the hills fairly effortlessly. The EcoDiesel didn’t pull quite as well as the Grand Cherokee SRT with the 6.4L Hemi, but it pulled better than any other SUV of this size which I’ve tested. The diesel engine is designed to be a workhorse and it handles the heavy load just as well as the non-SRT Hemi.

 

 

http://www.torquenews.com/106/2014-jeep-grand-cherokee-limited-ecodiesel-review-jeep-perfection-incredible-mpgs

[DmaxJC_ski]

Slam an LSX 427 big block in that bad boy.

[oldjeep]

@ozski - yup, awesome. The base 3.6 gas V6 tows just as much and the hemi tows over 10K. It is one of those diesel engines that they sell in the US so that people can say - hey I've got a diesel in my 1/2 ton pickup/SUV, not so much for anyone who does any serious towing much like that tiny diesel they sold in the Jeep Liberty for a while.

 

Compared to any of the current gm/ford marine engines it doesn't measure up to anything currently in use.

[harddock]

Go high tech! Go electric!

[E_T]

@DmaxJC_ski don't forget the blower on top

[swc5150]

This thread is really getting good. Lots of brain power between @E_T, @DW, and @Greg Banish. Would love to see the result if we could put these guys in a shop with substantial R&D funds to play with.

[chris_logan]

@swc5150 I think the original point here would limit their "substantial R&D funds"... though I can't help but agree with you. Can't they just be funded with Reece's Pieces and Pilsner?

[E_T]

@chris_logan we also accept bit coins..

[Horton]

I doubt the target industry folks are reading this thread but my project is pending sponsorship. I have talked to a number of interested parties. It is a matter of aligning interests and securing the funds.

 

[Ed_Obermeier]

The original point of this thread was - "I am considering a project for the web site where I take an old boat like a 91 MC that cost $3,500 and update it to be good enough to be a daily training boat. The goal is to get a boat that cost $15,000 or maybe $20,000 and is almost as good as a boat that cost 3 or 4 times as much."

 

This thread has gone completely off subject. If I recall correctly, the original idea was to test the theory that a newbie or someone with desire but extremely limited funds could get into the sport and train for potential tournament participation in a decently skiable/drivable older boat for a reasonable price point. Which IMO should remain at/under $15K. Hello??

[Jody_Seal]

It would be hard to keep the project under $15K for the average person. I could do it but then again I have a warehouse full of ski boat parts, $20K doable for a project like this. For $15K total the boat would need to be pristine and very cheap to begin with, That animal is very far and few. I have seen many very nice GT equipped bubble backs and a few mid 90's MC's for around the $10K that would be great starters for a project like this. Even $20K might be a stretch but could be done!