Regardless of your place in this Performance Powerboat World if you are an enthusiast you know one of the biggest events of the year for “Run What Ya Brung” bragging rights, is less than two weeks away. This is a time when pulleys are being changed, boost and tuning modified, and a hungry hunt for the right prop, right set up, and right amount of luck to propel the boat down the straightaway through the gate is taking place.
Now is the time and place for many speed hungry powerboats to load all their barrels and make their on water weapons as lethal as possible. All around the country there are a number powerboating extreme enthusiasts getting ready for a special kind of Big Dog Fight on the water. Some may be considered high profile and others are maybe less high profile and public about what they are doing but quietly determined and ferociously competitive.
One guy who is ahead of the curve and charging hard is Jeff Asbell of Carl Junction, MO. A quick discussion with him a while ago is where he leaked that Brad Smith of nearby Smith Power Performance out of Joplin, MO had just finished dyno tuning a pair of 1725 horsepower 4.0 Quad Rotor Whipple Charged engines for his 40SS Skater. Jeff has had the boat for a while now and been reworking it a little. These 1725 Smith Power Motors are what will be in the boat when it runs in the Shootout in a couple of weeks.
While the details were brief and specifics about the builds kept close and tight lipped. Jeff did disclose the new engines feature Dart Big M specially prepared engine blocks as well as a treasure trove of custom internals. They are 588CID boasting 1725hp and 1395 ft pounds at 6400 rpm. But wait there’s more: Smith Power stated that these are not the Largest Power Engines that they are working on, In development are even bigger more powerful engines for a soon to be released project. Stay tuned to Powerboat Nation to find out the info when it becomes available!
