Paul Marshall

[Paul Marshall]

Hi there folks, Im new to the airboat building thing and thought I could use as much advice as possible.
I have the 2 main components , boat and motor, if a 12hp briggs I/C is strong enough ? The boat is an 11ft 6" Lowe extra wide weighs 155 empty.
Maybe some of you can give me some pointers on how to go about this ?

[Papee]

It will work but will not be a speed demon or get on top of the water. If you are aware of this and are happy putting around here's how we use to do it. I'll try to make a diagram later when I have some time.

We use to just mount the motor on a pedestal. You cut a piece of flat steel that covers your bottom ribbing so you have a place to fasten it. On that plate you weld a round post. then you find a piece of pipe a bit larger so it just fits over the lower pipe. on this pipe you weld another plate, this will be your engine mounting plate. You mount your motor then build a cage around it so it swivels with the motor. Put a tiller stick on it to steer and some wire and your good to go. Oh you also need to put a brace on the bottom pipe on each side that runs to your boat sides for support. Happy boating.

[Papee]

This one is transom mounted but same idea.

[Paul Marshall]

Thakyou for the info Papee, I saw a video of a boat with a gsx 13.5 honda that moved pretty good through the water, guess my briggs aint big enough.
I want to be able to scoot, but dont have 3000.00 for a motor

[Papee]

Don't get discouraged, I don't have deep pockets either. If you've seen my boat you will see that I run a pretty simple setup. I have less than that in my whole boat. I just upgraded as I had the money. I did start with a good hull though, other than that hull there is not much that is the same from when this site started.

I put a boat together for a friend on the cheap. He had a 14 ft Jon boat and bout an old wooden airboat for parts. It had a 25hp briggs on it, I moved everything from the old boat over to his aluminum boat for him. It worked pretty well but just would not plane. I could not convince him to spend a few more bucks on it and buy a prop that was better suited for it. The setup he bought did not come with a prop,he had been running an old homemade prop I had around that I cut shorter and repitched a bit.

If the money is short just build with what you have keeping in mind you want to go bigger and build for that as far as a cage. I can tell you that I had my boat which at that time was 5'10" with a18hp opposed twin Briggs. I had to find skinny water to get it on plane and keep everything very light but it did work. It;s when you start adding weight when you run into problems.