I have boat questions...

[Kelvin]

Turbo not required. Supercharger and/or N2O... a solid MAYBE.

JATO! JATO! JATO! JATO!

[52 Ford]

LOL. You ever see Mythbusters trying to get JATOs? They ended up settling for giant "model" rocket engines.

[52 Ford]

What. Great minds think alike. I added the YouTube like BEFORE I went to the site you linked.

[whtbaron]

But where's the end to the video??

[52 Ford]

Apparently YouTube started getting real bad about copyrights and whatever and I don't wanna link to any sketchy websites. That was from Mythbusters episode 197, though.

They did 3 episodes on the JATO Impala, by the way. I ain't gonna spoil it if you haven't seen them. Start with the first one. They revisited a few years later. Then again few years after that. I think 197 was the last one.

[52 Ford]

A tiny little update (I'll start a new thread when I make actual progress):

So, I THINK I'm going to make the "plumbing" for the jet drive out of stainless steel exhaust tubing. The only "precision fit" I need is around the impeller, and that just needs to fit a plastic sleeve - a wear ring - that the impeller rides in. So it isn't like it's a super precise fit. If it's out by a little bit it'll wear in fast. If it doesn't, I'm sure the first time I suck sand through the jet drive it'll have PLENTY of clearance.

I figure the tube is thin enough that weight won't be an issue.

I'm going to choose the wear ring/impeller combo based on whatever is cheapest.

Heck, some Sea Doo's you can get now push 300HP. I'm making 12HP. Given, I have power/weight ratio on my side, but I think I won't see ANY sort of performance out of it till I swap out to a bigger, way higher output engine.

I think I'm going to run an electric clutch, since I have an extra one that aughtta be the perfect size. Uncouple at less than maybe 5% throttle, couple after that. Not sure about reversing, yet. I'd have a paddle with me, anyway, so might not worry about it.