From NizPro:
The most interesting project as far as I was concerned all year had to be the all alloy Nissan 4.5 litre quad cam 32 valve twin turbo engine for Ian Kilpatrick’s 21 foot Force ski race boat. This was something that I had tried to get around to doing for the last 5 years.
When Ian first rang me and asked if I was familiar with this engine and if it had any potential for ski racing I couldn’t say yes fast enough. As it turned out Ian and I hit it off fantastically well which is another reason why I have loved this project so much. Engine wise this was another R&D exercise that I always enjoy. Getting a complete new engine concept together is always time consuming, but when you nail it first time up it’s also very rewarding.
I believe in the last Newsletter we were getting close to start up. Since then the whole project has been finished, tested and raced and what a dream run it's been.
In its very first outing it qualified 1st in 8.0 litre and won race one. Its second outing, a round of the Victorian point score, 1st in 8.0 litre, 1st open men's and second outright. At the Sydney Bridge to Bridge 1st 8.0 litre and broke that record by 4 minutes 30 seconds, 3rd outright before copping a 1 minute penalty for a start line infringement dropping it down to 5th outright. The last meeting was the Victorian state titles where once again it won 8.0 litre and had two second places in the super class division and open men's.
At present a larger and stronger stern-drive unit is being purchased and fitted, as the present unit is showing signs of stress. This will give Ian some confidence to use some more of the engine's power level that will be needed for next years big three river races, The Southern 80, Robinvale and Ian’s home event the Mildura 100. Next year Ian will also be trying to qualify to become one of the boats to represent Australia for the World ski race titles that will be held in either New Zealand or Hamilton Island, Queensland.
Nizpro's task is to make sure the engines that power Ian’s boat named "ORSM” are 100% reliable and have enough power to take on all comers from around the world. A new 6.0 litre version is now being developed for this task and is expected to make around 1400hp, while the current 4.5 litre engines will remain for the 8.0 litre classes.
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Let me recap by saying this has been a very rewarding project for all and has only been so successful because of a total package of engineering skills held by all concerned. Personally I have great satisfaction in watching such a small capacity engine take on the big boys and achieve great results. Although to be an outright contender in superclass we still need around 8mph top speed. This will be achieved sometime next year and I look forward to the challenge.
The team at Nizpro has worked very well all year and the success we have enjoyed does confirm this. We will be expanding our staff early next year with the addition of two new apprentices (yet to be found), and we already have lots to do.
We will also be holding some more competitions next year with some more giveaways including a 110mph ride in "ORSM” for one of the winners.
DIVX encoded video:
http://www.dynologic.com.au/vi...w.wmv
Modified by maxnix at 3:36 PM 12/19/2005