It's really nice to see so many enthusiasts sharing perfectly common passion!
I'm new to the community .. well not so new cause I've been reading everything around here for nearly three years now. The time has come for me to write something cause I'm planning to start working on my Volga this year. Let me first say a couple of words about it and walk you though part of its fascinating history. It's been my fathers dream to have a boat like this since he was a kid ... One day he got lucky and managed to find and buy his Volga from a scrapyard near our town .. I was 8 when that happened and these boats weren't so rare back then. He started working on it and it took him about 4 months to get it all working. We had the model equipped with a standard V-drive and the ridiculous 6 cyl gaz engine which my father quickly got rid of and replaced with a 3.9 liter diesel Perkins. That decision was fairly simple to make cause of two main reasons: diesel fuel was couple of times cheaper than petrol back then and the other reason being that diesel's got more torque while the original one struggled ... Oh and there is a third reason - we had 3 of these engines laying in our garage. The results turned out to be amazing! That was the fastest boat many people had ever seen. It was insane experience, but it didn't last long. The engine broke down just at the end of the season cause it simply wasn't meant to go over 3k rpm and my father abused it. He had to look for a different approach and not long after he started looking, a guy came up offering a 2.8 185HP m110 from a w123 Mercedes which seemed like a good deal, so my father took it. This engine though wasn't very suitable for the job cause of it's lower torque levels in the low rpm ranges. The boat struggled to get to speed and to actually lift above the water, but when it did, it could go really fast! My father had the idea of putting a different propeller and after a few failed attempts he got the math correctly and managed to get the boat really flying. It may sound funny, but the solution was a slightly modified fan from an old industrial air conditioner .. He had made a replica of it out of aluminium and modified its blades so they fit his calculations. The results were spectacular .. the boat was able to get up on its wings loaded with 8 people and another 2.5 meter long plastic boat (approx. 60kg) put upside down on the nose section of the Volga. That configuration remained the last... In the next summer while we were having fun one day (me being 12 already), with nearly full throttle we heard a massive bang followed by very aggressive vibration and we stopped in the middle of the dam. Little bit shocked of that my father jumped into the water and discovered that two of the three blades of the prop were missing. The homemade propeller didn't survive the punishment that it was put through. This turned out to be the end of our Volga
Now I'm 25 ... I've been gathering knowledge and experience with boats for as long as I know myself cause my father owns a boat repair shop and I think it's about time to put our Volga back to life. Five years ago I thought the same and ended up only disassembling it and stripping its paint, but now things are different
Two things are bothering my mind and I cannot make a decision. Here is where I need you: First - will the Z-drive be better than the V-drive in terms of fuel economy, noise and weigth distribution? Second one depends on the first - do you think that a 270 Volvo Penta stern drive placed as low as possible will work on the Volga without the extension that the fabulous Russian engineers have cast specially for that boat?
I'm asking that cause deep down in my heart I want to get rid of the enormous and heavy V-drive gearbox and be more modern. I remember very loud noises from the original gearbox and I don't want them back. On the shelf I have two stern drives to potentially choose from - Mercruiser Alpha One and a Volvo Penta 270 from an old boat of ours. I actually prefer the Volvo rather than the Mercruiser cause in my opinion it's more durable. But it's not even decided yet if it's gonna be ether one of these.
The engine is already chosen, it'll be a 4.3 V6 Mercruiser Alpha Gen I. This engine is compact, sounds good, it's got more than enough power for the job and the last and most important thing - I have one
The question is - should I spend the required effort and money to convert the vessel for a Z drive or should I stick with the V-drive?
Thanks in advance!