RiverDave
In it to win it
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John from TCM has been kind enough to keep us all here at RDP up to date with what they are doing to their boat for this years Parker 300 Enduro!
Written by John Teague
So, to get started, a brief history of the boat: The hull is a 1982 model year laid up at Schiada. It is a purpose built grand national race hull originally developed by Robert Palm and modified by my father. We still own the set of molds, as well as the tooling to close off the cockpit area (full race aerodynamics you know?). It was raced in GN Division 1 and the Enduro from 1982 to 1992 with a variety of N/A and twin turbo engine configurations. It was the APBA high points national champion and Hall of Champions inductee in 1985 and 1988, coincidentally the years my sister and I were born. The final time it was raced was the World Championships in 1992 at Firebird, where it literally dominated the entire field. My dad decided to show up unannounced when everyone thought he wasn't racing. Some competitors got scared and tried to protest the boat for illegal numbers. Suffice to say, it was motivation to kick some ass. The boat was ran a few more times in random ski races until 1994, and was ran as an exhibition at an offshore race in 1996. From 1996 to 2009 it sat at the shop, double covered.
I remember at one point by dad considered selling it to someone for something like $35 grand (I'm sure glad he didn't). Then Ross launched the new Parker Enduro. Year after year boat counts increased. I wanted to dust off the GN boat and race, my mother wanted it to stay a museum piece. It was no accident that boat got parked in 1992. They had two kids, had won everything there was to win in the class, and drivers were getting killed. I don't blame her, I've personally seen my share of circle racing fatalities, but that didn't stop me from trying. My dad and I were in Havasu testing the Lick This Skater in 2008 and stopped at the Bluewater as we were leaving town. It happened to be the night after the Parker enduro and we ran into everyone after the awards banquet. He said to me, "I'll handle your mother, next year, we are doing this" and just like that it was on.
The summer before that first race we took the boat all apart and removed all the 1980's rigging and support systems out, as well at the Gentry Twin Turbo 468 (which is a REALLY cool piece, just antiquated for the beating we put on this boat in the race.) We assembled a new engine out of random parts laying around the shop. There was a block with a sleeve from a defective intake valve, repaired heads, takeout crank from a warranty job, then we traded Whipple one kit for another. We ended up building a hydraulic roller 1200 horsepower carburetor engine with the 3.3L quad rotors. I installed an offshore boat worth of rigging on one aluminum plate in front of the rudder, and we set the engine up like an offshore motor with V-Drive mounts, including a belt driven multi-stage water pump on a custom mount off the head. We did good that first year in 2009, good enough there was a classic extranormal made about it (must have done something right). We had an epic battle with Haribidian for the Overall and the truth is that if I had matched my dad's lap times, we would have won. It was my first time in the boat and quite frankly, I was scared to death of the thing. It is still by and far the most brutal machine I have ever been in.
In 2010, the handicap against our class was pretty steep from winning the year before. Regardless, we went for it anyways. Unfortunately, the prop threw a blade and seriously screwed the boat up. It broke the drop-through strut out of its mounts, prezeled the propshaft, and killed the V-Drive. The vibration was so violent that random things all over the boat sheared bolts off and the two halves of the V-Drive tried to separate and blew half the case bolts in half (not exactly sure how that happened). So once again the boat came back apart for a total redo.
In 2011, We had a nice run going until the water pump belt came off. There is still some discussion about whether the belt was loose or in the right groove on the crank pulley (I couldn't find picture evidence that I didn't screw that up), but the end result is the same: a full lap at race speed with no water (I have video of the steam shooting out the dumps), resulting in oil and water gauges pegged out at somewhere over 350 degrees F. Keep in mind we run a massive Dan Olson oil pan and twin bellhousing coolers, resulting in a total system capacity of over 24 quarts. Amazingly the engine was actually undamaged. Later teardown showed just a slight scuffing of two pistons above the ringland, but the valves and head gaskets were all good. I got in the boat after the emergency pitstop thinking it was going to be total junk and I thought it was knocking. It was not knocking, in fact one of the headers literally broke in half at the first bend the the primary, only 6 inches away from one of the aluminum 55 gallon IMCO fuel tanks. By the end of the day we had again broke a bunch of random parts, broke the front motor mount in half, gotten carbon monoxide poisoning, killed a mil-spec battery, and almost died in a giant fuel explosion, but its the Enduro. You learn to expect these things.
That leads us to this year's preparation. We gave the engine a full rebuild and configuration change. It was a hydraulic roller 1200. We bumped the compression, changed the cam to our new solid roller LS1 grind, upgraded the valvetrain to steel T&D's, and modernized the heads with 11/32 valves all around. It is now a legitimate 1400 horsepower, 7000 RPM setup. We also decided to take the plunge and run water-jacketed exhaust courtesy of some low-profile CMI big tubes after breaking those "other" headers 3 years in a row. The hunt for props continues and we plan on testing at least 5 before the race, including some donated by the #550 Tub of Fools boys. Currently, the engine is on a cart and almost ready to go in the boat. We are going to make some custom jacketed turn-out tailpipes and mount a couple reservoirs and its done.
Written by John Teague
So, to get started, a brief history of the boat: The hull is a 1982 model year laid up at Schiada. It is a purpose built grand national race hull originally developed by Robert Palm and modified by my father. We still own the set of molds, as well as the tooling to close off the cockpit area (full race aerodynamics you know?). It was raced in GN Division 1 and the Enduro from 1982 to 1992 with a variety of N/A and twin turbo engine configurations. It was the APBA high points national champion and Hall of Champions inductee in 1985 and 1988, coincidentally the years my sister and I were born. The final time it was raced was the World Championships in 1992 at Firebird, where it literally dominated the entire field. My dad decided to show up unannounced when everyone thought he wasn't racing. Some competitors got scared and tried to protest the boat for illegal numbers. Suffice to say, it was motivation to kick some ass. The boat was ran a few more times in random ski races until 1994, and was ran as an exhibition at an offshore race in 1996. From 1996 to 2009 it sat at the shop, double covered.
I remember at one point by dad considered selling it to someone for something like $35 grand (I'm sure glad he didn't). Then Ross launched the new Parker Enduro. Year after year boat counts increased. I wanted to dust off the GN boat and race, my mother wanted it to stay a museum piece. It was no accident that boat got parked in 1992. They had two kids, had won everything there was to win in the class, and drivers were getting killed. I don't blame her, I've personally seen my share of circle racing fatalities, but that didn't stop me from trying. My dad and I were in Havasu testing the Lick This Skater in 2008 and stopped at the Bluewater as we were leaving town. It happened to be the night after the Parker enduro and we ran into everyone after the awards banquet. He said to me, "I'll handle your mother, next year, we are doing this" and just like that it was on.
The summer before that first race we took the boat all apart and removed all the 1980's rigging and support systems out, as well at the Gentry Twin Turbo 468 (which is a REALLY cool piece, just antiquated for the beating we put on this boat in the race.) We assembled a new engine out of random parts laying around the shop. There was a block with a sleeve from a defective intake valve, repaired heads, takeout crank from a warranty job, then we traded Whipple one kit for another. We ended up building a hydraulic roller 1200 horsepower carburetor engine with the 3.3L quad rotors. I installed an offshore boat worth of rigging on one aluminum plate in front of the rudder, and we set the engine up like an offshore motor with V-Drive mounts, including a belt driven multi-stage water pump on a custom mount off the head. We did good that first year in 2009, good enough there was a classic extranormal made about it (must have done something right). We had an epic battle with Haribidian for the Overall and the truth is that if I had matched my dad's lap times, we would have won. It was my first time in the boat and quite frankly, I was scared to death of the thing. It is still by and far the most brutal machine I have ever been in.
In 2010, the handicap against our class was pretty steep from winning the year before. Regardless, we went for it anyways. Unfortunately, the prop threw a blade and seriously screwed the boat up. It broke the drop-through strut out of its mounts, prezeled the propshaft, and killed the V-Drive. The vibration was so violent that random things all over the boat sheared bolts off and the two halves of the V-Drive tried to separate and blew half the case bolts in half (not exactly sure how that happened). So once again the boat came back apart for a total redo.
In 2011, We had a nice run going until the water pump belt came off. There is still some discussion about whether the belt was loose or in the right groove on the crank pulley (I couldn't find picture evidence that I didn't screw that up), but the end result is the same: a full lap at race speed with no water (I have video of the steam shooting out the dumps), resulting in oil and water gauges pegged out at somewhere over 350 degrees F. Keep in mind we run a massive Dan Olson oil pan and twin bellhousing coolers, resulting in a total system capacity of over 24 quarts. Amazingly the engine was actually undamaged. Later teardown showed just a slight scuffing of two pistons above the ringland, but the valves and head gaskets were all good. I got in the boat after the emergency pitstop thinking it was going to be total junk and I thought it was knocking. It was not knocking, in fact one of the headers literally broke in half at the first bend the the primary, only 6 inches away from one of the aluminum 55 gallon IMCO fuel tanks. By the end of the day we had again broke a bunch of random parts, broke the front motor mount in half, gotten carbon monoxide poisoning, killed a mil-spec battery, and almost died in a giant fuel explosion, but its the Enduro. You learn to expect these things.
That leads us to this year's preparation. We gave the engine a full rebuild and configuration change. It was a hydraulic roller 1200. We bumped the compression, changed the cam to our new solid roller LS1 grind, upgraded the valvetrain to steel T&D's, and modernized the heads with 11/32 valves all around. It is now a legitimate 1400 horsepower, 7000 RPM setup. We also decided to take the plunge and run water-jacketed exhaust courtesy of some low-profile CMI big tubes after breaking those "other" headers 3 years in a row. The hunt for props continues and we plan on testing at least 5 before the race, including some donated by the #550 Tub of Fools boys. Currently, the engine is on a cart and almost ready to go in the boat. We are going to make some custom jacketed turn-out tailpipes and mount a couple reservoirs and its done.
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