Insane FE30 build

[Scott T]

There's a lot of talk about these hulls, but no build threads?! Figured I'd change that.

I got mine about a week ago, and first impressions were pretty good. Straight away i put it next to my warhorse Whiplash for a comparison. The gelcoat on the insane is excellent, very glossy and consistent. The boat is very solid and should take a beating. The hatch fit is disappointing though, my local dealer is going to send me another one to see if it's better (thanks Richard!).

I also bought the hardware package for simplicity. The strut, bracket and rudder are first class. The turn fin & bracket isn't of the same (top) quality, but is well shaped, sharp and should work very well.

Overall it looks really good, and is a welcome addition to the market.

[Scott T]

Mine is going to be set up for out Club class - meaning motors such as Feigao, Ammo, Aquacraft etc. No Neus, Lehners, Castle Neus etc. Set up will be:
Motor - Nemesis 8XL
ESC - Hydra 120
Cells - Thunderpower 5,000 4S1P

So I start by marking the motor position at about 11.5" from the outside of the transom. The boat may have a Neu 1515/1Y in it when I repaint my Whip, so I'm setting it up as a P Sport by the draft instructions Tony generously sent me (thanks!).

Next is a trial fit of the battery with the motor in place - all looks OK. I was going to custom make a carbon fibre motor mount, but I think I'm going to be lazy and use an OSE mount.

[Scott T]

Mounting the hardware was a breeze, just mark the centre line, line the bracket up and drill two holes. Unfortunately the bolts supplied with my hardware were not long enough, but I sourced some at the LHS when I was getting the pushrod. I offset my strut a few mm to the right as I do on all my hydros (but not as much as I normally do). This will counteract some prop steer.

I have studied many pictures of Tony's and Mark's boats for the interior layout. Mine's going to be a little different, my steering pushrod will run through the hardware, rather than on the RHS of the boat. This gives better access to the servo horn - no biggie, but I strive to make my boats easy to maintain.

This means the servo will need to push the rudder, rather than pull it for right turns. So I'm going to sleeve the pushrod for much of it's length with brass tubing. This will add stiffness, but still allow me to pull the rod put through the seal if required. The seal will be a simple brass tube through the transom with fuel tubing providing the seal. Has worked a treat on two of my other boats.

An off-the-shelf servo mount (being lazy again) will hold my Hobbyking digital servo (they work great!). I test fitted where I wanted the servo, and the boat balanced at 2" behind the sponson with all of the major gear inside - perfect. I tried to remove the servo while holding the mount - and couldn't! So I took a small cut out of the mount and out of the hatch mounnting flange. Removes easily now. I roughened up the hull and mount and epoxied it in position to dry overnight.

[Scott T]

Next up I'm going to cut some carbon fibre rails to stiffen up the tunnel and tie the motor mount in. These will extend forward to stiffen the battery area, and provide extra security for my battery retaining strap. It will make sense when I post some photos. Thanks for the carbon Andy M!

Apologies for the poor quality photos too, my camera and I aren't getting along at the moment!

[johnf]

Hope the bad hatch fitment isn't a common issue.

[Darin Jordan]

Hope the bad hatch fitment isn't a common issue.

The forward end of mine (outter corners) are about 1/4" up above the deck on both sides, and the curvature of the hatch doesn't follow the contour of the boat very well towards the rear, leaving the rear end a tad above the deck when at rest.

I'm going to try to gently heat it and see if I can take the warp out of it, at least up at the front.

Otherwise, my hull was nicely done.

[Scott T]

Darin, mine's much the same. Let us know the results of your heating.

I just finished my carbon rails. I simply wanted to run some rails from just behind the motor mount, forward past the battery. Andy M gave me some carbon that was a wiper from a printing press or soemthing. It's about 3/32 thick and worked out well.

The rails are pretty basic, 15mm high and have a slot for the battery strap up front. They have been epoxied to the motor mount, and the whole thing will drop into the boat as an assembly. The pictures show them better than my words....

[detox]

Nice. I was wondering when someone was going to do a build tread on one of these.

Beautiful Whiplash BTW. Why repaint?

[andym]

Scott I am watching with great interest, I want to see how this stacks up against the proven Whiplash. That carbon needs to be very well keyed up when glueing. If they are a epoxy layup you will be able to heat the cowl up with a hair dryer and mold into shape. Hold it where you want it whilst it cools down and it will hold the new shape. Had to do the same thing with my gas whip cowl. So keep the info coming mate, looking great so far

[Scott T]

Thanks Detox, the old Whip has a few battle scars and the right sponson was completely torn off a couple of years ago. I never did a great job of re-fnishing it.

Andy, thanks for the info on the carbon, I'll be sure to rough it up well when I glue it into the boat (I roughed the sides up with 120 before gluing to the motor mount). I dare say the hatch isn't epoxy though, so the heat method may not work. I'll see what the new hatch is like and maybe try heating it.

[v-spec]

The entire hatch was redesigned from the original so that it would fit better and not warp as much. The hairdryer won't really work though because it's resin not epoxy.

Mine over time fits a little worse than when I got it but it's not a concern to me really since it all fits great once it's taped down.

It's hard to see from my picture here but my cowl has totally different lines compared to everyone elses. Jeff told me he redid the lines and shape to make it hold it's shape better.

My experience with resin and fiberglass is that it shrinks a bit over time as it completely cures and that's probably the cause of the deformation. And if it was epoxy glass it would just end up doing the same thing if it was left out in the sun to heat up.

[andym]

Epoxy does not start to go soft until it reaches approx 60 deg Celsius, the few hatches I have reshaped this way hay not gone back to the original shape, one of them is over two years old and we go boating when the temps get to 45deg C here in summer

[Scott T]

It's hard to see from my picture here but my cowl has totally different lines compared to everyone elses. Jeff told me he redid the lines and shape to make it hold it's shape better.

The side bulges on your do look different to mine, yours seem to blend in smoothly to the rear, whereas mine have a distinct finish point. I wonder if Jeff would do an exchange?....

Anyway, let's not make this thread about the hatch, I'll get on to more of the boat in the next few nights.

[MarkF]

I have had to redo all of my hatches as well. I take a sanding block and sand down the bottom of the cowl and the outer edge untill it all sits flush with the body all the way around. You need to push down on the cowl to find were it sits to high. Then I take my heat gun and heat and over flex the ends to get them to flollow the contour of the body a little better. You need to over do it a little to account for the spring back. But be carefull not to do it too much and crack the gell coat. Jeff has tryed really hard to fix this but its just the nature of the beast. Please dont expect to get a different cowl if you send yours back. They are all the same and everybody has to deal with it. If you take the time to get the cowl to sit down flush it will tape up very easy and look nice.
My servo is screwed in through the bottom of the boat into the mount so service is very easy and that way I could have it pulling instead of pushing.
My motor is at 11" but now that I have put 2 of these things together and I'm getting ready to build my third, I will go with 10" now on my next one because it makes more room for 2P lipo set ups and will just make life a little easier getting things in and out of there. Greg Schweers says he would do the same if he were to do it over again.
My motors have all been set in the center of the boat and we have had no problems with prop steer whatsoever with any of my high powered set ups.
If you guys have any questions please feel free to ask here.

Mark

[Scott T]

Thanks for your input Mark. We're only allowed 600g worth of battery here, so having the motor a buit further forward will help with the balance.