Vintage Firehawk FE build

Hello all, my first FE boat was the Firehawk around I think 1990 or so. It was a low cost FE and had good styling but not very fast with the underwater prop and rudder. At some point there was an article in a R/C magazine back in the day where a guy upgraded his with a Graupner surface drive. So I did the same to mine running a Speedworks Modified Marine Motor on one 7.2v with a Novak ESC. I don't know what happened to that boat. So a few years ago searching for another one and I came across a guy selling one and purchased it. He had converted it to brush-less and it moves pretty good but I got the itch to build it all vintage like my original. So I have now sourced all the vintage parts to start my build. Used Graupner drive, new prop, new gears, Vintage Tekin Marine 432 ESC, NIB Vintage Speedworks Modified Marine Motor!! (that cost a bit on Ebay). Only difference in the set up vs my original is the better Tekin ESC and I will be running two 7.2 NimH batteries in series. Will keep thread posted with progress.

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Oh my god I had this boat kit!! I have been trying to remember what the name of this kit was but could not remember until I saw this. This was exactly the boat kit I had, it was my first "real" RC boat kit meaning it required some assembly and was faster than the crap you buy at Toys-R-Us. I got it when I was 14 or 15 which would have been 1988-1989.

It had the inboard like shown here and it had the big flat speed controller with the open winding and the arm that would slide back and forth. I remember...the first test run I put it in the pool (without the cover) and hit the throttle and the boat went in full speed reverse and sucked itself under water completely. LOL. My dad grabbed it pretty quick and disconnected the battery and we got it dried out and working later that day. I had the speed controller hooked up backwards or something.

I later saved up some cash and my father brought me to Orange Blossom Hobbies in Miami (the holy grail of hobby shops back then) and I bought the same outdrive kit ironically shown here and did the conversion. I beat the crap out of that boat but had a lot of fun with it. My friend that lived around the block got one too and we raced them almost every day after school in the lake behind his house.

Very cool to see this!! Thanks for posting it!!

I remember that boat too.

I built one of these all custom painted ‘back in the day’! Nice find

So cool that other members here had these back in the day! And even cooler that Chris did the drive conversion on his also! Yep it was back in the day I got mine from the LHS for my birthday around 1989-1990, don't remember the exact year but it was when I was in middle school.

So I got some work done! Got it stripped and removed the inner hull, cleaned the drive parts, made a ply transom reinforcement and installed it, and did one layer of fiberglass to seal the holes and strengthen it. I only reinforced the transom on my original one and sealed up the holes. Doing it this time I thought I should do a complete layer of fiberglass on the bottom since I am adding a second battery (weight and speed will increase and the plastic is flimsy), it is much stronger now.

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Not wanting to derail but this thread had me looking for other vintage RC boats and I came across this on ebay. It's no longer listed but I saved a picture. Sorry it's so small.

This was my very first RC boat. I was probably 6 or 7 years old. And just like I sunk the Firehawk, I also sunk this one....sort of. I dropped the controller in the water (salt water) then told my dad the battery must be dead. He opened the batter cover and water spilled out. LOL. He got it working again after a dunk in fresh water and drying it out.

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Originally Posted by ScarabChris

Not wanting to derail but this thread had me looking for other vintage RC boats and I came across this on ebay. It's no longer listed but I saved a picture. Sorry it's so small.

This was my very first RC boat. I was probably 6 or 7 years old. And just like I sunk the Firehawk, I also sunk this one....sort of. I dropped the controller in the water (salt water) then told my dad the battery must be dead. He opened the batter cover and water spilled out. LOL. He got it working again after a dunk in fresh water and drying it out.

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Haha! Awesome! My first boat was the sister ship to that! They sold those in Coast Guard Versions and the Marine Police Versions! I got the Marine Police version! My first R/c car was the Sears 4x4 Ranger truck then I got the Marine Police boat. Then I got a Tamiya Frog buggy, then Kyosho Javelin buggy, then I got the Firehawk boat! I found two of the marine Police boats on Ebay over the years, one new in box, and one that I upgraded with older mini Pro-Boat drive train in. Here are some pics of the upgraded one. The new in box one is tucked away in the basement along with the original box for the Firehawk, and a new in box Sears 4x4 Ranger truck.

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Ok keeping with the vintage theme.....

I have this exact model right now. This is not an actual picture of my boat but it's identical, Dumas Chris Craft Corvette Stirling. It was built by my uncle back in the 70's. He had it all original and a beautiful display piece in his house in South Miami. Fully functional RC with working lights and all. I believe this is the "B15M" kit.

Anyway, as a kid I would be in awe of this boat every time we went over to their house. I always told my uncle I wanted it. Then Hurricane Andrew damaged their house in 1992. By this time I was 18 or 19 years old. Once I heard my uncles house was damaged in the hurricane I asked about the boat. LOL. The house was actually destroyed, my uncle, aunt and cousins actually had to run for their lives from the house as the roof was being ripped off. Once I heard that I was sure the boat was gone, taken by the wind and smashed into pieces. But after hearing about their ordeal the boat was no longer a concern. My uncle, aunt and cousins were coming to our house to stay until they can figure out what to do and how to put their lives back together. After spending a few hours gathering everything they could and loading it in their beat to hell conversion van they showed up in tears, we welcomed our family to our home, they were here to stay as long as they needed.

My father and I went to help my uncle unload some things from the beat up van. My uncle turned to me and said he needs help with something in the back of the van. He opened the back double doors of the van and on top of all the wet and filthy clothes was the model Chris Craft boat....that was the moment I burst into tears and my uncle joined me. He finally felt it was time to give me the boat, only fitting since his kids (my cousins) were all girls and had zero interest in it anyway. Amazing that he thought to bring me the boat and even more amazing is that it survived, only minor damage. It was sucked out of the house when the roof was taken off and landed in the back yard but it looked like the storm put it down gently.

I have it in storage now and I removed all the electrics and put a small gasoline engine in it. I made it low speed and with true exhaust so it rumbles and dumps smokey water out the exhaust. It's pretty cool. I still have the Kraft single stick transmitter too. Next time I go to my storage unit maybe I'll bring it back and get it going and take some pictures.

Wow that is a very cool boat and an amazing story! So cool it survived to be passed down to you!

Got the drive and vintage Speedworks motor installed along with the steering servo. I am using random stuff I have to build this like back in the day when I was a kid with not much money (IE leftover wood from plane kits to make mounts, random servo arms, etc). The motor is really cool and in the pics I placed a standard motor so you can see how long it is, I don't think the endbell coolers make much difference in cooling but they look cool!!

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Well I just need my trim tabs to show up and then this is done, all vintage accept RX/TX. Boat weighs just a few ounces under 4 pounds with batteries. It's going to be a long wait for spring.

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Going to be slightly faster than stock. LOL.

Should be a lot faster than stock, just hope it is faster than the brushless motor in the stock drive. The funny thing is ever since I got the Genesis it makes everything else feel like it's standing still.

Got the trim tabs so now it's completely finished! Starting off with a 42mm prop.

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