Speed On The Water

You might have missed this—Ilmor Marine limited the release of this news to its Facebook page and word-of-mouth during the Super Boat International Key West Offshore World Championships in November—but Ilmor is offering a retrofit kit for its Indy stern-drive. That means that owners of Ilmor's Generation III 550-, 625- and 710-hp engines can replace their existing drives with Indy units. So now owners of boats with Generation III Ilmor power can have complete Ilmor propulsion packages.

"We introduced the kit very quietly because we're not expecting a huge rush of orders," said Paul Ray, the president of Ilmor, earlier this morning. "We'll make it very much more public as we go through the boat shows and poker runs in 2010."

That leads to an obvious question: Does Ilmor plan to offer a kit that will make Indy drives compatible with powerplants from other high-performance engine builders?

"Not at this stage," said Ray. "We'll take a very long, hard look at that in the future, but at this point, no. It's a matter of making sure we protect the good name of the Indy drive. We want to build a reputation around that drive that says it's a good piece. When you open yourself up to other engine options, you run the risk of someone putting too much power through the drive. The Bravo drive, for example, gets a bad rap because of that. It's a good drive, but it was never meant for 800 horsepower. We don't want that to happen to the Indy drive at this stage.

"If we were to make a move like that, we'd probably go work with Bob Teague (owner of Teague Custom Marine, a noted engine shop in Valencia, Calif.)," added Ray. "That way, Bob could sell the Indy drive with his engines and we'd have some control."

The price for the Indy drive with a retrofit kit is $37,488,

Just checked in with Mike D’Anniballe, the creative genius—yeah I said genius—behind Sterling Performance in Milford, Mich. Like every business in the high-performance marine world, D’Anniballe’s famed engine shop has been slammed by the current recession. But during a phone call this morning, D’Anniballe told me that his company has sold 14 of its 1,500-hp/1,000-hp supercharged EFI engine packages.

“I’m thrilled to death with that,” said D’Anniballe. “And the racing-engine business has been decent—we had seven boats in Key West. Most everything else has been maintenance, refitting and rebuilding. The lower-level engine stuff has been dead.”

How does Sterling account for selling 14 engines that retail for approximately $89,000 a piece in a down economy?

“I think the guys who really have money have a lot of it,” he said. “And they’re getting some good buys so they’re freeing up some of it. That’s my take, anyway.”

In February this year at the Miami International Boat Show, the public got its first look at the Indy stern-drive from Ilmor Marine. Expectations were justifiably high given Ilmor’s reputation—built on its stellar V-10 engine line—for top-shelf engineering, quality construction and reliability.

That’s probably why a few mechanical issues in the earliest production-model Indy drives released in June raised eyebrows a bit higher than they should have been raised. Ilmor set a high bar for itself with its engines, which made anything less than perfection—from day one—unacceptable for the Indy drive. So the naysayers had a field day.

“Some of the problems showed up right away, but they were not design flaws, just niggling little things that happen when you make the transformation from production to prototype,” Paul Ray, Ilmor’s president, told me last night. “We had a few teething troubles, and we’ve handled them as professionally and fairly as we could. We think we have a bulletproof product now, but you really don’t know that until you have hundreds of units in the field.”

Right now, there are 25 Indy drives in the field, including two on the transom of an Eliminator 28 Speedster catamaran powered by twin 725-hp Ilmor engines.

“It’s running 152 mph,” said Ray. “That’s pretty impressive, but we think there’s even more in there.”

Break the propeller-driven powerboat speed record of more than 220 mph before the Miami International Boat Show begins Feb. 11—that’s the mission of the team involved with Copeland’s Phenomenon, a 56-foot-long turbine-powered catamaran. Considering the boat has yet to touch the water, according to its throttleman Scott Barnhart, that’s a lofty goal.

“Right now, Carbonell (John Carbonell, owner of Super Boat International) has it set up for January 8,” Barnhart told me this morning. “But that will just be impossible—we’re working 15 hours a day now just to get the boat done, get it in the water and start testing by the end of next week. January 8? That’s a dream. I’m pretty good, but I’m not that good.”

Designed and built by the Copeland Group in Metairie, La., the catamaran was unveiled in early November at the SBI Key West Offshore World Championships. (Check out my Nov. 16 blog, “Record-Attempt Catamaran Unveiled at Key West Worlds.”) The cat’s four turbine engines reportedly can produce a combined 12,000 hp. Al Copeland, Jr., son of the late offshore racing legend Al Copeland, will pilot the boat with Barnhart.

“We definitely want to have that record under our belt before the boat show,” said Barnhart, who added that the cat the cat will be on display at the event. “Hopefully, we’ve done our homework.”