And now comes the fun part, INSTALLING THE DRIVETRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm going to tell you all what I did while on the road on this one and then go back and document the changes I feel I need to make to do a proper install. My first step was to make some engine mounts. I used .091" thick 6061 aluminum plate purchased at Hub's Hobbies in the Mineapolis south side suburbs and, using a Dremel with a cut off wheel,. cut off approximately 1" from the end. I next cut the strip in half giving me two pieces roughly 1X3". I next placed the engine in roughly the center of the factory edge and, using a small drill bit as a punch, centerpunched the locations of the mounting lug screw holes. Using the appropriately sized bit, I drilled a hole as located earlier, followed by running a 4-40 tap to make threads. I next screwed the plate to the mounting lug and verified the second punchmark was in the center of the screw hole. Finding it slightly off, I used a smaller bit and, turning the bit by hand, started drilling a starter hole. With the location now corrected, I removed the screw holding the plate to the engine. I then drilled and tapped the plate to complete the second screw hole. This led to the fun part, locating the hole location for the second plate. I took the easy way out on this one, laying a square on top of the first plate and drawing a line from the center of the screw holes to the edge of the plate. I then laid the second plate beside the first and marked where the lines ended on the first plate. The square was then used to draw lines from the marks across the second plate. With the locating lines now drawn, I punched starter points for the screw holes, followed by drilling and and tapping them. To verify I got it right, I screwed the plates to the engine lugs and found one of the plates was drilled too far in, forcing it upward at the outer end. This was cured with the Dremel, bevelling the edge of the plate enough to get it horizontal. I then laid out and drilled a 1/4" hole in each outboard corner for mounting the plates into vertically placed "Humdinger" rubber isolators. Using the same dimensions as on the aluminum plates, I made a "template" of the engine mounts and drew it onto the inside of the boat's bottom.

To locate the holes through the bottom of the hull for the retaining screws, I took the 1/4" drill bit and used it to make a pilot dimple in the template. I tacked the template down with a couple of drops of CA and ran a small drill bit through the template and the bottom. I next removed the template and fabricated a pair of doublers from 1/8" plywood, securing them to the bottom of the boat with a line of CA down the middle, followed by weighting them down to cure.
Once the CA had cured, I back drilled the bottom and doublers with a 5/32 drill bit and followed that with a 1/4" bit. I next used a coundersink and bevelled out the holes on the bottom and inserted four flat head screws through the botton, securing them with the Humdinger rubber inserts. The last step(so I thought) was to install the mounting plates and engine onto the rubber mounts. It was at this point that I realized I had a problem What I found is in my rush to get the boat ready to go, I forgot to consider two things when I cut the plates:
1) The pressure line to the right side tank and how far out it would protrude
2) The width of the wide part of the pipe
The first one wasn't a big deal, just trim the plate until there was room, no problem....... IF I WAS AT HOME AND HAD MY MILL TO WORK WITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It took over an hour with my limited tools to get the plate cut back enough to clear the pressure tubing
The second turned into a real problem. I cut the pipe so it would telescope over the header for easy adjustment later.......forgetting that the carb barrel extends out as you open the carb. This gave me two choises, smash in the side of the pipe and hope it still worked or leave the pipe long enough so the carb didn't reach the pipe. This was a no-brainer, the pipe stayed long.
With the engine in, it was time to bend and fit the stuffing tube. With a lot of patience, I slowly put a bend in the tube so that the tube would pass through the bottom just forward of frame 6. With a little more patience, I got the tube to line up perfectly with the engine collet......until I cut the tube and installed it into the front of the strut.Now I found the hole in the bottom was too round and needed some slotting to make it work while the tube itself had a side bend from me working around the strut. After another 30 or so minutes, I had the stuffing box in . By comparison, the flex cable was easy:
1) install drive dog and thrust washers(if used)
2) insert flex cable into strut and stuffing tube
3) run the shaft all the way to the back of the collet and measure
4) measure from back of strut to drive dog, allow for cable wind up
5) Cut cable, grease and install
6) DOUBLE CHECK TO BE SURE THE COLLET IS ASSEMBLED CORRECTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! I was fortunate to find that mistake before cutting the cable
Next on the list was install the skid fin. Again, no big deal, the transom is already set up with hardware and the bracket is drilled to match...........except for the machine screws holding the blade to the bracket. Once again, I had the hardware and drill, what could go wrong? I made the bracket out of 6061-T6 and Mike Hughes made the fin out of 7075, a much harder variety. I had grabbed a set of old drills in that last minute scramble to get out the door and on the road that didn't want to hardly scratch that fin. After what seemed like an eternity(it was now almost 1:00 in the morning and the boat was supposed to be on the water in 9 hours) I finally got the fin drilled, only to find the fin had slipped by around 5/32" down. Too late to fix that so I bolted on the fin and went to work with epoxy. I had bought a package of Z-Poxy in Missoula Montana so I mixed up a batch and secured the stuffing tube as well as started to seal the bottom................and then the stuff cooked off. I had to mix up a total of 5 1/2 ounce batches of the stuff to finish sealing the boat. Unlike the West Systems I had back at home, this went on thick and didn't flow out. Since it's what I had I made due. After getting the boat sealed, I called it a night.
It's now 10:30, the fun run has been going on for 30 minutes and I'm working on the radio. Servos are servo taped to the bottom, horns drilled as needed and installed, pushrod hardware is ready to go...................and I'm fighting with 4-40 pushrods that I don't have the proper tools to cut or bend. I finally got everything together(so I thought) and we headed for the lake, 45 minutes away. Upon arriving, the new boat gremlins attacked in force putting me back in build mode for another hour. FINALLY, the boat was ready:
Fuel in tank.....check
Glow ignitor charged......check
TX and RX battery packs charged.........check
starting belt installed.........check
12VDC starter and battery are on, won't spin the new engine The top was so tight that one of the others had to grab his 24VDC set up and that finally got it going, but not until his starter was too hot to touch. After a few minutes, we were going to launch the boat and stupid me had forgot to turn on the transmitter. Hit the switch only to kill the engine as the throttle was in full closed position
After letting the starter and engine cool a bit, we tried it again. This time the engine fired up on the second or third try so we threw it on the water and off it went, until the servo tape on the throttle servo let go The engine slowly wound down and died about 15 feet from shore so we got a ball on it and drug it in. All in all, the boat showed promise and acted like it wanted to get up and really run.

That ended on July 2nd. The question is, did I learn anything? HELL YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1) Dont rush a build just to get it done. You'll end up taking more time in the long run
2) be sure to have more tools and materials than you think you will need as I was forced to buy building supplies and tools in Montana, Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio just to get it into a runable condition

Now that the boat and I are back home, it's time to talk rework. I decided to try and take the Z-Poxy off with a heat gun, only to find that the stuff gets fragile extremely quick. It took only a coule hours to strip the bottom as it flaked off in chunks.