Super Jet My First RN Build - Complete rebuild, shorten, and rocker!

[Parsonsjb88]

Nice work!

Why did you fill the engine mounts like that? I've never seen that done before. I can only assume to add strength, but I didn't know the engine mounts needed strength added to them?

Thanks man. Filling the engine mounts was more for cosmetic than strength. I plan on running my final visual carbon layer over the mounts so I wanted a solid surface with no areas to accumulate water. I'm also thinking of using Cabosil to increase the radii around the mounts to make it look cleaner.

Last night I finished cleaning up my engine cases and they are ready for assembly

 

[jackmarcus]

This thing is gonna be sweet, I can already tell! Great job!

 

[Parsonsjb88]

This thing is gonna be sweet, I can already tell! Great job!

Thanks Jack!

Just found out my cylinders are done and are shipping out in the am. Looks like I might be able to get my engine fully assembled within the next week more pics to come this weekend!

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Got some goodies in from McMaster Carr, rotaloc mounts for my fuel tank, waterbox, battery, and ebox


Finished touching up my porting and epoxy work. First pic is the drive side, second is the stator side. Tried to line up the shots as similar as possible, they look pretty even to me



Spent a little time running my steering cable to the pump to see how far I can move my pole bracket forward without needing a longer cable. Seems like I can move it about 7" forward before it starts getting tight so I'll prolly do 5-6" depending on how it looks.



Also finished soda blasting my carbs and cases Monday night. Today I will be getting my carbs ultrasonic cleaned so I paint them and throw in the new carb kits, needles, and jets. Here's a pic of the carbs before soda blasting, I'll upload pics post ultrasonic cleaning tonight hopefully.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Well I had a long but mostly productive weekend working on the ski. Nearly 25 hours of work between Saturday and Sunday.

Finished cabosiling the rocker and the inside of the rocker received 3 layers of 1208 biax and 1 layer or 5.7oz carbon fiber. The whole floor and side walls received 1 layer of 1208 and 1 layer of carbon.

Finished sanding most of the ski to prep for capping the rear of the hull and for the widened bond rails. Also finished filling my engine mounts, filled all holes in the bulk head and side walls then reinforced the nose some more.

Lastly I finally decided on a direction and shape for my gunwales, distance to move pole bracket forward (5") and prepped the entire tray for a layer or two of carbon.

As expected, I ran into a lot of little issues like over grinding and thinning out walls then having to add more glass, carbon and biax not wrapping around edges like planned, etc. Also, FYI wetting out 1208 is a bloody pain in the a$$. Next time I'm doing mostly carbon lol. Pictures to come in the next few posts.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

This week I'm gonna focus mostly on getting my engine together and leak tested along with finishing my carbs and starting my custom ebox. The weekend will be back to glassing the hull.

Here are some progress pics:

Prepped cases to paint stator area.

Stator area painted

Painted my mid shaft housing lime green:

Mocked up the pole again with new 5" forward location.

Marking out templates on 1208 biax.

Marking out templates on 5.7oz carbon

Floor and sides glassed. Microballoned chines slightly to make it easier to glass over.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Engine bay laid with carbon. Will probably add 1 more layer and work my ass off for visual.

Tray area Prepped.

Decided to do two plane complex end caps for the ski. Hard to explain but hopefully the pic will show.

Trimmed up some cardboard templates for the gunwales.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

So I didn't get a whole lot done over the weekend thanks to a lack of epoxy. It also doesn't help that I was out wake boarding and ripping the 550 all day Saturday lol.

So progress update: finally settled on a pole bracket location, foamed the front of the ski and shaped it the way I like. Nearly ready for glass with some tweaking and sanding. Here's a rough idea but I think the final product will be without the sloped section to keep the bracket lower.

Foamed the rear of the ski and shaped the ends to awesome (I think lol). Little more sanding and its ready for glass.

Finally taped off my carbs and painted them with self etching primer, followed by chrome paint, then finished with metal cast blue. I'm quite happy with the results. In the process of installing the new mikuni carb kits I annihilated one of the grommets so one carb is not fully assembled until I get a new grommet.

Here are the carbs as they sit now with the @Jetmanic Allen head carb bolt kits installed, powder blue throttle wheel, and billet aluminum flame arrestor adapters.

Tons more fun to go. Goal is to finish most of the hull this long weekend. More pics to come.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Also just finished roughly assembling my handle bars and grips.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Well this past weekend was quite productive and I made some decent progress.
Finalized the shape of the pole bracket area. I wasn't happy with the sloped mounting area at had before, limited the amount I could love the bracket forward and kept the pole bracket too high up. So I cut out a huge section and refoamed it.


Finalized shape.


Before laying up in the nose I started to work on the bond rails as I knew this would be a challenge and wanted it out of the way.

I started with taping up some cardboard templates to the sides to get the overall shape and filled it with 2lb two part expanding, same stuff as the nose and rear.


Took off the cardboard and started the arduous shaping process.




More shaping....


At this point I had gotten a little overwhelmed with how much work it took to foam and shape that one side so I decided I needed to do something that would make me feel like I made progress; nothing does that like laying up some sweet carbon lol.

I touched up the pole bracket area to my satisfaction then laid it with 2 layers of 1208 biax and about 4 layers of carbon. I still have more to add but I'll do that on the inside where I don't mind building up the the thickness. I was very happy with how this turned out. (pics in the next post)

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Pics of pole bracket area:


After letting the epoxy cure for the night i got a fresh start in the morning on shaping the other side which would prove to be much more work than expected to make "symmetrical" to the other side.

I started with making a cardboard templates of the bond rail angle on the opposite side. Then taped those to cardboard to get a fairly similar representation of the other side.


Templates done and taped up.



I then foamed the rail and a couple hours later I stripped the cardboard and started shaping. Of course, I forgot to take into consideration the foam pressure deforming my high tech cardboard molds so the rails warped and the angle was quite far off. At this point I shaped it roughly, added more foam with a spreader and reshaped and repeated until I got it close.



I had laid gorilla tape over the rails to help with foam removal later on but then removed it because I was afraid the epoxy would still stick to it and I'd have a mini freak out trying to sand gorilla tape off a cured composite.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Since I was already sanding I decided to prep the tray area some more.

The next day I spent some time working on the motor and @BRANDO6X and myself pressed in new bending bushings, assembled our cases, cranks, and bed plates. We followed the 701 build thread here on the x, and the factory service manual for torque specs and such. The only thing we had to do some guess work on was substituting different loctites as we didn't have 271, 242, or 572 as the manual stated.





Finally laid up the rails with carbon to get the shape set. 3 layers at 0, 45, 90.




Also attempted to carbon the hood seal area but that was an epic failure. Rushed it and now it's all lifted and weak. More grinding to do... Lol


In the morning I checked and the rails were not cured, too cold here in Minnesota lol. Gotta love 50 degrees overnight in July so I set the hull outside and decided to take some pics in the sun. I'm really starting to get excited about this project after seeing it out in the sun and the progress I've made.

 

[Mud-Nut]

Jeremy, nice work man! You're making some crazy progress. I can't wait to see it done!

I had laid gorilla tape over the rails to help with foam removal later on but then removed it because I was afraid the epoxy would still stick to it and I'd have a mini freak out trying to sand gorilla tape off a cured composite.

Just FYI - I've had really good luck with resin NOT sticking to gorilla tape. Used that method 3 or 4 times now.

P.S. What are you using for resin? US Composites 635 Fast?

 

[Parsonsjb88]

P.S. What are you using for resin? US Composites 635 Fast?

Thanks man! Its been a lot of work but it feels great to see it finally taking shape We've been using the USComposites 635 medium. I was worried the fast wouldn't give us enough working time for the larger surfaces. With the temps lately tho I wish we had some fast kicking around.

My goal for today/tomorrow is to sand out the foam from under the rails, prep the outside rocker & the underside of the pole bracket area and make templates for everything on the bottom, rails, pole bracket area, and rear end caps and lay it up. Hopefully Friday be able to flip it back over and remove the foam from the rear and start reinforcing the tray area. As of right now I'm not too happy with the look of the engine bay so I may do another layer on the sides and rear as well as redo the carbon on the hood seal area.

Tons of work to go yet, made a huge order from various sites yesterday which should be everything I need to get the ski running. Only thing now is to decide on what Hot Rod Flatz paint to use (Top contender right now http://www.tcpglobal.com/Automotive-Paint/hrf2510.html followed by http://www.tcpglobal.com/Automotive-Paint/hrf2615.html)

 

[Nate_D]

Awesome work. Making some fast progress too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Sweettt! Now I'm super stoked Just got my aptly named Epic Billet Couplers from @freestyle 650. Needless to say these things look so "Epic" I don't want to install them cause they'll be hidden; maybe I'll just screw them on the ends of my handlebars so everyone can see them lol.

 

[Mud-Nut]

Fancy!

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Fancy just like the lightened and drilled flywheel from @#ZERO. all my pretty parts are finally coming in lol.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Little behind schedule but still making progress every day. Over the last two days I made all my templates for the bottom of the ski, rails, and back of the ski. Then I cut them all out of carbon and glass. Also finished about 50%of my custom electrical box. Pics to come shortly.

 

[Parsonsjb88]

Well yesterday was a long day but with the help of the gf I laid down all the glass and carbon on the rails, nose, rocker, and rear end caps.

I had originally planned to only do 3 layers of 1208 inside the rails then finish with 3 layers of carbon but after getting the glass laid I decided I didn't want to take any chances with it being too weak so I laid up 2 more layers of 1208 for a total of 5 layers to get the thickness for the rails. That was then topped with 3 layers of carbon. The nose and rocker got 3 layers of carbon with an extra layer of 1208 on the side of the rocker. Rear end got 2-3 layers of carbon just to get the shape so I can pull the foam out and reinforce from the inside.