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Starflite Pad Revisited

ndaniels said:
Motor will keep her straight, I think... I just wonder how bad its going to affect the ride in the rough.. probably land harder, but might not be that bad- who knows?

Its really a cool mod and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it!
Click to expand...

Yea its definitely gonna ride harder,,,, and faster. I keep thinking about the old V-Drive flat bottom race boats. Many of them ran a scag or two, even as far forward as behind the driver's seat near about the middle of the boat.

Can't wait to see how it turns out. Be safe! :bigthumb:
 
There definitly will be an increase in speed and it will be alot more than 1 mph. The original Starflite was a shallow V hull. There is more frictional drag in a V than a pad bottom which will get more of the hull out of the water. The flat pad will also help prevent chine walk.
 
Ok, now I see, I am comparing grapefruits to grapes! I thought the starflite had a small pad. I stand corrected and now feel really stupid. That will teach me to mind my own business.:sssh: But in my own defense, I have never seen the bottom of a starflite. I thought he was adding on to what was already there.
 
Been sanding on it all day........... The edges are sharp as a knife! Shooting epoxy primer on the bottom half of the hull tomorrow.
 
Cool Mod..

I have to give credit to anyone who is going to make a mod and share the process and results. you have my support :cheers:
I am not sure what you are running for power but you should air out quicker and likely be faster on the top end. The key to speed is get the boat out of the water and a wider and flat pad does that very well. You may need to relearn how to drive your boat but the I think the results will be good.

I have a friend with a Velocity 22 with a 502 BBC in it. Pad is stupid wide, I think about 18" (I have never measured it only seen it on the trailer next to a Tuff 21) the ride is more than okay and the boat breaks 80 on GPS.

Anyone making these types of changes should be supported and
applauded for their efforts as this what makes the next generation of our boats better and faster.
:bigthumb:
 
Thanks for all the support guys! I've been sanding for the past 2 days. Shooting primer and paint starting first thing in the am!
 
ianz said:
I have to give credit to anyone who is going to make a mod and share the process and results. you have my support :cheers:
I am not sure what you are running for power but you should air out quicker and likely be faster on the top end. The key to speed is get the boat out of the water and a wider and flat pad does that very well. You may need to relearn how to drive your boat but the I think the results will be good.

I have a friend with a Velocity 22 with a 502 BBC in it. Pad is stupid wide, I think about 18" (I have never measured it only seen it on the trailer next to a Tuff 21) the ride is more than okay and the boat breaks 80 on GPS.

Anyone making these types of changes should be supported and
applauded for their efforts as this what makes the next generation of our boats better and faster.
:bigthumb:
Click to expand...


Thanks!

I'm running a hopped up 3.0 Merc that pushed my friends 21' Liberator to 105 on the GPS. Last summer the boat was basically point and shoot right up to about 74 MPH then the chine walk set in. With the old cable steering and no torque tab on the lower I could not get past that speed no matter which prop or motor height I tried. I've gone hydraulic with the steering this year as well as adding a torque tab. I'm sure I'll be learning to drive it all over again once I get it back on the water.
 
nice pretty exciting, Im always surprised how well my enticer does in some chop, doesnt ride nearly as rough as I would expect after having looked at the pad.
 
I've been working 10 hour days, six days a week. Haven't had much time to get out. I was off Sunday, but of course it rained most of the day.......
 
Ken gave me alot of help when I was trying to make the madefi work on my boat and also gave me a good deal on some parts.
 
boatman4021 said:
Ken gave me alot of help when I was trying to make the madefi work on my boat and also gave me a good deal on some parts.
Click to expand...

Ken is a great guy. I was going to buy his last custom Carbon Fiber cowl, but couldn't pull the trigger because I was still building my motor. It's a shame that they are no longer available.
 
At the end of the day, what overall differences did the pad make? Handling? Lift? Speed? What would you do differently next time?
 
Mark said:
At the end of the day, what overall differences did the pad make? Handling? Lift? Speed? What would you do differently next time?
Click to expand...

So far no speed numbers, but it does ride over the chop smoother than before. I noticed it the very first ride out and never mentioned it to anyone. I took the wife and brother in law for rides out on the lake at different times and they both mentioned the same thing so I'm sure it's not just wishful thinking on my part. Tomorrow is going to be the first time since we went on vacation that I'll have the boat in the water. I still have lots of setup work to do before I can get some good gps numbers. With work and weather I'm kinda running out of time. I'll probably have to finish tweaking the setup next season. For the most part I'm going to try to concentrate on fine tuning the wolf and getting my motor to behave better at idle and no wake speeds. I will keep posting on my progress.
 
Right now I'm hitting a wall right around 66-70 mph. I've ran a 24 Hoss Triton 2, 26 Trophy Plus, and 28 Trophy Plus all to the same speed. I think the pad is too narrow and too tall. I've tried different motor heights and still the same results. I added 4 more inches of setback to my setup this week and will do more testing. I used to be able to run the 24 to 73-74 mph before the pad. There was so much torque on the cable steering I could not prevent the chine walk with steering input. I now have a seastar pro hydraulic system, but can't get back to my original speed.
 
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