V-Drive California: Sanger Resurrection

This boat has been thru many hands and has been left in total disarray of form and function when it first landed in my hands. The list is way too long to list here and would bring most boat people to tears.

First things first; I had the ultimate pleasure of getting connected with Andy Herbert up near the CFW area and this man got me and this boat back on the right track. Somebody had installed a Powerglide in this boat at some point (and not very well either) and Andy got it all straightened out after adding a new Casale box with a whirlaway all fresh and rebuilt by another great man of many talents; Steve Patterson, all getting rid of the old Algon prop release that had been jammed on so tight we had to cut it off the prop shaft. The motor rails were just about toast and he made some adaptors for them until new ones could be furnished and also re-fabricated the rudder cross brace that had been lagged into the stringer tops. Without the help of these two guys I would have been way up the creek... without the paddle!

And then the old 461 engine finally let go after being swamped and never actually clean out by the prior owner(s), it was time to give this old boat some new lifes blood. I got together with Brian Johnson Racing Engines and he finished a brand new engine for the boat. I decided to go with a 496 cubic inch motor this time mostly because he had one ready to go with a bottom end that was originally planned for a blown injected customer. It has a steel Scat crank, Crower built/balanced rod assemblies and now with JE pistons for a 10.2:1 compression ratio to basically run pump gas. My original 990 rectangular port heads have been completely reworked with new valves, springs, retainers, hardware and put back together with Crane Gold roller rockers and Comp Cams Xtreme pushrods to finish out the valvetrian to the new cam; a Comp Cam solid flat tappet with .629 Intake/.605 Exhaust Lift @ 108 Degree.

New Block, Bottom End Installed

At this point I decided to fabricate everything all new and be done with the inside of the boat. The entire motor rail mounting assemblies had to be remade along with new motor mounting feet all made from T-6061 Aluminum and then polished and some of them powdercoated with an insane candy red color that matches the boat to perfection. The bildge area was all scraped and sanded and a new coat of black Duracoat was layed down. Andy then milled out a strut plate for me and I fabricated some cross bracing and connection plates to bring it all together.

New Motor Rails Installed, Strut Plate, Crossmembers

The powerglide transmission came out and a new driveshaft assembly was completed by Driveline Service of Sacramento. We dropped the motor into place at Scotts shop with the new driveline assembly completed.

Dropped Engine Into Place

I have reused the Edlebrock TR-2X intake with new Holley 850 DP carbs built by Nickerson Marine and the Rewarder twistie headers. Its all fired up through a new MSD 6AL ignition box with a rev limiter this time... I think the old junker engine just couldn't handle the RPM's I was expecting of it. I dont have any doubts this one will do just fine.