So we took the boat back down the pond for another shot. It went superb! I would have to say that it was the fastest it has run yet. With no real problems causing us to take it home it gave us the opportunity to give it a bit of a tune and get some more speed out of it. The latest video shows it going significantly faster and now on 98 octane fuel and a different plug there is no missfire. It was truly singing!
The water level was getting a bit low in the pond now uncovering 2 ‘islands’ in the middle. It proved to be a little hard to negotiate between them so i stayed in the bigger area. It looks like i’m just doing circles but infact the back run is quite straight.
The boat flipped a couple of times, the last one got caught on video but the first one was much more spectacular. The boat held up well tho and once the water was out of the engine it started fine.
So, on to the coupler. Well, i would say that it’s still the best solution so far but it’s still not quite up to the task. After a full tank of juice (first time!) it was a bit melted. The problem is that most gas powered boats have water cooling the exhaust header so any product that i get is likely to only take 200 deg or so. Mine does not have any cooling at the moment. So, what i have decided to do is wrap some 1/4″ copper pipe around the header about 4 times. I am going to run cooling water through it from the rudder and see what that does. Hopefully this will help reduce the temp of the pipe and therefore preserve the coupling.
I have also got some stainless sheet to put on the back of the boat as trim tabs to help get it out the water a bit better.
I’m working on trying to get an onboard cam going too 