High School Airboat Build II

[CWAIS]

EK Machine shows up on Friday with the last of our parts that were powder coated. Thanks Troy Smith and EK Machine !!

[CWAIS]

Marked out where to weld the axle to the axle mounts, Priming and painting the rudders did not go so well ( exhaust fans quit working, first gun had a air leak somewhere and kept sputtering ), next students were placing the engine back in the engine stand, students putting the engine stand back together again, dropped the engine stand back into the hull. Thanks for all the positive comments we appreciate every one of them.

[CWAIS]

Flex pipe, mufflers are all connected. The turn downs are welded up. Lost all my seniors as of last monday they were done with school. Today we got the cage on the hull and all the lights wired except for the interior hull lights. We went to start the engine and it started right up then would die right away when the switch went into run. Couple hours later we found that the solenoid was not grounded to the frame and boom we were back in business. They started working on the back rollers for the trailer at the end of the day.

[Gary S]

Hope your seniors come back and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Shame you had the problem with the engine block, probably would have been done if not for that.

[CWAIS]

They will be back Gary. This is the last day for my boat builders until friday and we have a few things to get done ( finals week ).
Our rudders needed to be repainted so I got that done this afternoon. We want to have a picture day on friday at noon when the students
get dismissed for the summer. Here is a short video of some of the students starting up the airboat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYOiyF8VTM
Here is another video where you can here the engine a little bit better.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dci7ZR6fBR4

[Gary S]

Great work to you and your students. When is it going to the water? You inviting the ones that worked on it? Sort of like a field trip.
You still have last years project or did it help fund this one?

[CWAIS]

Thanks Gary I will pass it on to my students. Not sure on the 1st day in the water, still have a few things to get done. I will most likely run it with out any students around the 1st time, I would hate to have something go wrong and have someone get hurt.. Then they will be contacted to meet somewhere to drive. Not all the students will be able to drive until they get their boaters safety tests done ( that is why I liked it when we finish with some snow on the ground ). Last years project was sold to pay for this years project. Tomorrow is the last day of school so we are hoping to get a picture tomorrow of the whole group and individual pictures for students to use in their portfolio.
We did get the rudders put back on and connecting rods attached. Tie downs are ready to roll.

[CWAIS]

Well my last day with students was friday. We had seniors come back in for an after school picture. We still have a few things to take care of before this boat hits the water but this is where we are at right now. I think this group of students did a great job on this project and we hope that you enjoyed our build. Once we get it in the water and tested we will post more pictures and videos.
I forgot my thank you list at school and do not want to miss anyone so I will also post that up soon.
Thanks for following and giving that extra support !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chuck Wais
Rio High School
Rio, Wisconsin

[Rick McC.]

Very nice, Sir!

Looking forward to the final report and pics.

Your pics are excellent, BTW.

[CWAIS]

Little report
Still trying to get a few things worked out but on monday I dropped the boat in the water and it floats
Started up the engine and hit the water running. The boat jumped right up on plane but seemed a little lacking power, could only get 3600rpm and would hop pretty bad. The back of the hull has a 2" section hanging out from the transom so I pounded the outside 6" down a little ( helped a little but not enough). Took the boat home, went in to school and made some shims up, each one being 1/8" thick. Went home and put a jack under the front of the engine and lifted it up, then slide one shim in on each side ( should have used two, live and learn). Next I re-pitched the prop it was at 11 degrees so I took it down to 8 Degrees. Today weds. June 14th I asked one of my daughters to come out for a test run with me and away we went. Started with a solo run. It jumped right up on plane, got it up to 3600 rpm no hopping yet so I gave it a little more gas and made it up to 4000 rpm this time( more hopping). You could really feel the difference from monday. I went back and picked up my daughter, I was surprised at how well it got up on plane and drove. We went for a 15min ride and came back to the landing, while idling back at the landing I noticed the oil pressure had gone down to 25 ( it was at 65 to 70 while running) so I shut down. I checked the oil it was fine, water temp. never got over 185 the whole time we were out. We are running straight 30 wt for break-in, can 30 wt thin down enough for the oil to drop that much pressure from 65 to to 25 at idle after it is warmed up? I looked down in the bottom of the boat and saw a bolt, looked everywhere ten mins. later found it was a bolt that held the solenoid to the starter. Checked the prop and found two small scratches in the metal guard strip on our warp drive prop. Man this could have been a lot worse.
Right now I'm just getting these things ironed out before I can have kids take a crack at it.
At this time, I'm thinking that the only way to get more out of this engine is to go to a two barrel carb instead of the single barrel carb that we have in it right now. We will have to get more air going though the carb to get more rpm ( our reduction is a 2.1 to 1 ratio and we should be able to turn 5000 RPM's). We can do that this next fall, as for oil should we be running 20-50wt any ideas??????

[CWAIS]

Sorry for all the pictures disappearing. I have used Photo bucket to put up my pictures on different web sites over several years and never had a problem but now they say I need to pay them 399.00 per year to do 3rd party hosting so that was a lot of work for nothing. I will try to figure something out. $399.00 is way to steep for me. Have not taken kids out yet still trying to figure out an oil pressure problem and I was laid up with heart surgery at the end of June ( Heart was only working at 10 % effi., during the surgery alone I had 9,900 beats that were not pumping blood,no wonder I could hardly keep my eyes open at the end of the school day. Its working way better now).
Engine starts right up good oil pressure, take it out and run it to get it warmed up. Bring it back down to idle after warmed up and the needle hits 0 pressure. Touch the gas pedal it jumps up to 25 psi at 1200rpm give it more gas and you are running at 50 to 60 psi. Tore the pump apart, checked relief valve for sticking , checked over flow ball and spring for seating, changed oil, changed oil filter. Verified gauge, it looked good until I went to tighten the compression fitting on the gauge and noticed the needle would go in the minus direction about a 1/4" which is a lot. So I picked up a new mechanical gauge and now we will see if that was the problem or not. Sorry it took so long to get an update!
Chuck

[Dirtman]

Hopefully you have a bad gauge and the new gauge fixes that problem. Good to hear that they caught the heart problem before it got any worse and I hope you have a complete recovery

[Rick McC.]

Hopefully you have a bad gauge and the new gauge fixes that problem. Good to hear that they caught the heart problem before it got any worse and I hope you have a complete recovery

Exactly!

Fukk photobucket...

[kwanjangnihm]

CWAIS glad to hear your heart issue is under control!

The SA gallery is available for photo uploads with unlimited space. Yea it stinks photobucket is charging now!!

[Deano]

. . . The SA gallery is available for photo uploads with unlimited space. . .

I could be wrong again, but I believe that the unlimited picture upload space
you referenced is actually one of the perks received for becoming a Site Supporter.

Sorry for all the pictures disappearing. I have used Photo bucket to put up my pictures on different web sites over several years and never had a problem but now they say I need to pay them 399.00 per year to do 3rd party hosting so that was a lot of work for nothing. I will try to figure something out. $399.00 is way to steep for me. . . .

You need not feel like the Lone Ranger in that regard. Evidently they don't drug test the front office help over there.

Given Site Supporter status can be attained for $25 and would address that entire issue, I hope that relieves you of needing to figure something out. No need in stressin' the ol' ticker over something as mundane as that. Glad to hear your doing much better as far as that all goes. You do an admirable job of what you do, and the local parents will keep those kids lining up to take advantage of your unique abilities.

[CWAIS]

Well we found the problem ( BAD GAUGE). This last week my wife and I went for a quick ride on a small lake near by. We went through the normal routine, took it out on a 15 min ride and then the moment of truth. Slowed down to idle and watch the needle on the gauge drop down till it hit 10 psi and it stopped on 10 psi I know that this isn't a lot of pressure but I have been told that this is very common on this engine.
Here is a little clip of our ride, one of those days that you can say, " It is great to be an airboater "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcyziIxAuDs

Thanks Deano

[pipedog]

Looks like nice riding!! And a nice riding boat... GREAT JOB!!

[rvrdux]

Just came across this thread while searching for some info. What a great read and what a great teacher.

Great Work!

[swamper2]

What kind of engine is that

[BenBad]

Swamper2 here is what I found in one of the early posts. The engine is a EA81 Stratus engine

[CWAIS]

Rvrdux thanks for the comments, swamper2 it is a Subaru engine that was beefed up by stratus for airplanes ( a little over 100 hp).

[KC5AKB]

A great teacher for sure!

[CWAIS]

Thanks KC5AKB It helps to have good kids !!!

[Sniper]

that boat looks awesome, what did you do with it after you finished it, did you sell it ?

[CWAIS]

We sold that one and started another. We weren't going to do one this year but I had a Senior who wanted to do all the welding on the hull by himself . I just haven't posted any pictures yet. He has the hull done ( a little different style but he did a great job) , another group of students have the trailer done except the rollers and the engine stand is just about done. We were going to do an ecotec engine but the gearbox I ordered doesn't want to get to us????? so if we want to get it done this year we are going to go with a 2.51 subaru egg engine (165hp) out of an airplane with a gen.III gearbox.
Thanks for asking
Chuck