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Thanks to everyone for advice and inputs over the past few months.

After 5 months on the hard, I was able to hear the sweet sounds of my new 350's purring. It's been a long, hot summer with some unexpected twists, but we put fuel and fire to the new GM 350 V8's and they purred like kittens.

I pulled the B28 in April and had my Velvet Drives rebuilt and purchased new 350 V8s to mate to them. In May and June I gutted the bilge, built new sister stringers, all new wires, hoses, battery shelves and boxes, vent hoses, etc.

In July, I hired an experience guy to help me do the install and alignment. That's when I learned that my shaft logs, shafts, couplings, struts, bearings and rudders were all wacked out. Had to cut out the original logs and stuffing boxes. Couplings on shafts were rusted tight and struts and rudders were bent and twisted. New everything put in place and floated in to ensure perfect alignment. This added a couple of months and $$$ to my project.

Was able to hook up the engines this weekend and start 'em up. Hope to splash next week.

Paul J
1973 B28 "PALADIN"

Congratulations. That's got to feel great.

The result will be worth the time and money!!

What are you planning on using for props, Paul?

I repowered with 5000rpm 300hp Mercruisers and took some bad advice re props. I am seriously overpropped with my cupped 17x17s.

I just had my spare set redone at 17x15 and hopefully these will run up to 5000rpm.

Cliff

Congrats Paul - I was wondering how you were doing.

My props are 17x17. My 5.7L (350ci) are carbed and rated at 270 hp, 4800 rpm. My crusing RPMs are typically 3200 - 3400 at 22knts. At WOT I have seen the tachs run up to 4400 at 28-29knts. But that's with the Rochester Quadrajet 4bbls wide open and I can't afford that gas bill. I like the 22-23 knt range at ~18 GPH... I'm in no hurry to get anywhere. Heck, half the fun is the boat ride, not the destination!

Remember, if you drop the pitch you will increase RPMs but you're going to loose 2 inches per revolution (theoretically without slip). This wont make you go faster (but I've found that 15" pitch will give you more power/less slip in the lower RPM ranges and on top of the water faster).

Torque is what drives a boat... not HP. You want to find the optimum on your Torque/HP curve and props that maximize the physics. Everything will be a trade... lower pitch when the boat is loaded down with bikinis and beer will help the ride, but reduce top end. Higher pitch will increase your top-end speed (to a point), but load 'er up with fat chicks and you may not be able to get it on top of the water!