Set Up for a Race Ready Stock SuperVee 27R

[longballlumber]

Morning Gang,

Our club www.mmeu.com will be racing a new class this year using the AQ SV27R. This class is going to be a true STOCK/SPEC class. We will be specifying ALL components of the class.

Boat: AquaCraft SuperVee RTR boat
AQ 1800Kv 6 pole motor (included with the boat)
AQ 45amp electronic speed control (included with the boat)

Batteries: 2X AQ GrimRacer 4200mAh 2S Lipo battery packs (using 4S voltage)

Prop: AQ GrimRacer 42X55 prop that will be balanced, sharpened (by an outside source), and kept in possession of the MMEU Club for race days only.

Spirit of the class is as stated: to provide a cost effective and reliable class of racing for all skill levels by controlling the level of performance using reasonable guidelines. Our goal is to encourage equal performance among all boats within a class which will foster and encourage boat tuning and driving ability. Only a select set of well-defined modifications to encourage boat tuning and avoid premature component failure will be allowed. The boat will otherwise remain OEM stock using the OEM stock parts.

With that being said, I thought that I would provide and in-depth look at how I will be getting my boat ready for the race season. They may be RTR boats, but you still need to make sure everything is working properly and you have the proper adjustments necessary to tune that boat. Much of what you see can be applied in some way, shape, or form to any and all boats whether you build or buy a RTR.

Stay Tuned!!!

[longballlumber]

Well, here are some shots of the boat coming out of the box. Nothing surprising here, there are some minor changes compared to the original SV that I bought several years ago to get started in FE. But, all in all, its the same boat.


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[longballlumber]

The first thing I do with any new (or used for that matter) is dis-assemble the entire boat.

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[Bullwink]

I have a few SV27s that I am about to rebuild so I will be watching what you do with interest.

[longballlumber]

With any boat that has bare or naked wood. I suggest sealing all of it with a good quality marine grade epoxy resin. NO matter how hard you try, eventually you will get water inside of the hull. Coating the wood with epoxy will delay the decay of the wood.

I choose the West Systems brand it’s one of the best on the market http://www.westsystem.com/ss/

Other brand recommendations would be:

SystemThree - http://www.systemthree.com/store/pc/...urpose-c11.htm

Maus Epoxy - http://www.masepoxies.com/

Even hobby grade finishing resin would be fine. Remember though that hobby grade 5min epoxy is NOT water proof. You will be much better off using a 30min expoxy.

Also: it can be a real pain to get epoxy into tight areas and underneath parts. For this I take my acid brush and put a bend in it and try my best to get EVERYTHING coated.

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[longballlumber]

Next, I started working with the hull bottom. For those of you that don't know, “scuffing” the riding surface of any boat helps to reduce some of the friction between the water. I simply used some 3M “green” to slightly rough up the surface and remove that shinny/sticky surface.

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[longballlumber]

I am ready to start re-assembling the boat. I noticed during disassembly, the motor couldn’t be removed with taking off the motor coupler. I my opinion that could create some headaches while trying to perform maintenance at the pond or after a race day. So I chose to use a sanding drum attachment on my Dremel tool and open that hole just enough to get the motor/coupler out together.


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[longballlumber]

Before installing the motor back in, I wanted to relocate one of the water fittings on the motor cooling jacket. I want to keep the inlet as far away from the outlet. I do this to minimize the change of getting an air pocket caught inside of the jacket. I don’t think this is 100% necessary, but it’s something l like to do.


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[longballlumber]

Another thing I did before getting the motor and motor mount back in is reinstall the water cooler outlet. In an effort to seal as much water out as possible, I use a SMALL amount of Silicon RVT on the surface that mates with the hull. I will usually have some excess on the outer edges and use a Q-tip to clean them up before it cures. It only take a small amount of silicon to make it water tight. Motor mount, motor and cooling line all put back in!


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[longballlumber]

From here I move to the transom of the boat. One thing I have noticed on all of my RTR boats, the factory doesn’t usually take time to remove burrs or sharp edges after cutting the raw materials. I immediately take my Xacto knife with a #11 blade and clean up the ID edge of the stuffing tube. I also use the same 3M green scotch bright pad using on the bottom to clean up the OD of the brass stuffing tube. While doing all of this I make sure the stinger strut can be installed and removed with no issues. You don’t want any binding at all. This will also help with stinger strut adjustments later. The stuffing tube will need to move inside of the strut as you make angle adjustments.

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[longballlumber]

Once I am comfortable that everything fits back together as intended, I re-installed the mounting bracket for the stinger strut. If you notice in the pictures, I used the same procedure as the water outlet to seal the mount to the boat transom again minimizing intrusion of water.

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[longballlumber]

Now I move to the stinger strut itself. Here is where I do a slight modification to the leading edge of the strut. In some cases, it’s possible that (if left unchanged) the strut leading edge is so close to the transom once installed on the bracket, that making angle adjustments could become difficult or impossible do to interference with the boat transom. In short, this just makes sure you don’t run into the issue later at the pond when you’re trying to tune the boat. You can also find information on this in your SV27R owner’s manual on the bottom of page 12.

What I have done is taken my belt sander and sanded the short 1/16-1/8 nub off of the stinger strut leading edge. I would also put a slight round or chamfer on the lower leading edge to minimize water resistance and improve negative angle adjustments on the strut.

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[longballlumber]

Next up is one of the most important areas to getting ANY boat to perform well and that is the drive line components. The idea is to minimize friction and resistance which creates efficiency. Upon pulling the flex shaft out of the boat, I wiped it down to clean off all the grease from shipping. We all need to understand the flex shaft assemblies for these RTR boats are mass produced and the assemblers may not take a lot of time during the assembly process. These first pictures are of the shaft before I’ve done anything… although this one doesn’t look quite as bad as others I had in the past; it could still use some cleaning up on the coupler end. The coupler end has some solder “slag” if you will and the stub end also has some “slag” that sticks out.



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[longballlumber]

So, what do I do to clean up the flex shaft? I use my 1” belt sander. I start with the coupler end of the flex shaft and use the belt sander to carefully sand down the solder so that it’s flush with the rest of the outer coil strands of the flex cable. As I get the OD of the flex shaft taken care of I put a nice round or chamfer on the very end of the shaft. This will allow a much smoother assembly and dis-assembly process of inserting/removing the flex shaft to the flex coupler. No sticking, No jamming in or out…

I will also continue down the entire length of the flex shaft making sure to rotate the shaft continually minimizing flat spots on the shaft. What this does is “knocking down” any high spots on the flex and provides a smoother OD of the shaft. You should be able to see in the pictures how the finished product is a little shinier than the picture above. Finally, I make my way down to the solder joint between the stub and the flex. Again, there was excess solder on the OD. I carefully used my belt sander again sanding smoother the excess solder to the OD of the outer cable.


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[longballlumber]

On the drive dog, I quickly knock down the set screw that is sticking out of the drive dog. Again using my belt sander, I simply sand it so it’s flush with the OD of the drive dog.



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