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Following the crowd was never something I would do. You can’t beat the competition if your running the same stuff. You learn from initially listening, watching and reading the record books. You gain knowledge through educating yourself by trying different ideas. You fail many times in the process, but you keep working at it. It’s not one part that makes for a championship top running boat, it’s the sum of everything from the boat, the motor, the prop, the driver and THE SETUP!

This thread is about “THE SETUP “.
I remember when Rob Scythes saw my Yamaha Pro 50 powertrim unit on my OMC 15 inch triple.
He called it “YAMARUDE”. That coined phrase has been around ever since and the majority of T850 TBoats run that system.
The other common addition is a setback....most common is 4 inch. You add that on a VooDoo and you actually have 8 inches because the boat already has 4 inches built into the bottom.

Now let’s go back and look at the history 1975 is the big year for performance gains in the class. The class was called FE. The delta appeared and the OMC stinger with the nitro case. plus OMC supported the class and developed props for the class. The class became a 68 mph class with out of the box motors. The VooDoo appeared in 1987 and Steve H was running 70 mph. The critchfield also appeared. In 1991 power trim was allowed in the class ...speeds jumped into the 72-73 mph.
In 1997 the class slowed down. In 1998-9 it was back to a 68 mph class.

T850 started as a 68 mph class a and is now a 73 to 77 mph class capable of close to 80 mph on lake runs.
Watch the race videos....look at how the boats rest in the water...what do you notice??
(1) boats run negative trim most of the time.
(2) the boats rest stern heavy

So why the negative trim?....SPEED! The boats are so fast and the hulls supply so much lift that the boat will fly if they run positive trim. We witnessed that with Kevi’s flip at Gravenhurst, his boat just took off and flipped in the air on a straightaway. Prior to that accident all accidents occurred in the corners not on the straightaway. The corner hooking was most common where the nose sticks and the boat does a U turn or the barrel roll like Jim Whittington’s accident.

(2) why the boats rest stern heavy?
They do level out better with the driver in the boat, but, at top speed the added stern weight makes the boat nose light and very nose light once the boat reaches speeds over 70 mph.

So with a boat capable of 75 mph even need powertrim or a setback? Would it be actually faster without the added weight and would it actually handle better and maybe easier to drive....have I got you thinking??

Here is a separate thought on Pro 50 power trim on the OMC 56 15 inch and the Mod 90 Yamaha 15 inch. Do you need it? What about using the OMC stinger clamp bracket on your mod 90 Yamaha? It’s much lighter and you could run thru transom SST 60 trim in the boat thus moving more weight away from the transom for better boat balance...at speed!!

Something to think about.

Ok, the first post got you thinking....now let’s think about technology in T Class.
I am not talking about the lake runner TBoats, I am talking the racing T boats. I am continually talking about needing to change what we see at the boat races...same old, same old is the most used phrase.
What has changed in the T boat design in decades? Well basically nothing except in 1997-98 we saw a new model hull...the MOD VP boat from Quebec. It was new it was fast in 1997, but wasn’t competitive in 1998..then disappeared...Rick Attard may have the only boat remaining. Speedmaster had a speedcat MOD VP as well. But it wasn’t very good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2dGhG0B1jo&t=3108s

The idea behind the boats was good...but the design wasn’t! The technology of tunnel boat design has improved. The knowledge of what works in tunnels has improved. T class doesn’t need to become a tunnel class. It needs to be MOD VP. Keep the “V” for hull design and the “P” for production in the name The MOD covers the rest...MOD bottom...transom water pickup...large motor skegs. The powerhead rules don’t need to change.

Many don’t know that STV introduced their version of a small MOD VP tunnel. Unfortunately it raced against the mirage Tom cat ll pure tunnel and wasn’t competitive with 40 hp motors. Mirage built a MOD 14 foot Cheetah drag boat that was successful with V4 OMC power. The Gordon’s owned one.

So the hulls are out in the marketplace. They just need to be refined to take advantage of new technology!
Here is an example
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 7022c535d4

Hmmm? Maybe. One of the reasons I think the T classes are attractive is because of the the current boats out there of different manufacturers. A new boat hasn’t been produced over here in years. Maybe a new lighter, longer boat would help with balance issues. Wonder how a light weight version of an SVT would do with a smaller motor like the Tohat 30? I’m hearing and seeing a lot of things going on around 4 stroke engines this winter so it will be interesting to see what is unveiled in the spring. We are talking about engines in the 15-60hp range.

Here we have a fairly new design “Wing Style “ T850 “Celled” boat.
Now when the T750 world kilo speed record was set about 10 years ago. The record was set using a GT30 hull with a big extended transom.
Now look at the extended transom on this boat.....it is Hugh!
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... =undefined

Now look at the bottom...the boat has a pad!.....the shape is similar to the Hydrostream Vixen pad!