Water Thunder Performance Airboat Engines

Chevrolet LS Specialists

Water Thunder Performance, Inc.
Phone: +1.321.508.5316
E-Mail:
1728 Agora Circle SE Suite A
Palm Bay, Florida, 32909, USA
Appointment Only, Please.

Products

Fuel Injected

500HP LS2
500HP Water Thunder LS2 on the dyno testing fuel injection and carb intakes!

At Water Thunder Performance we have been continuously testing and improving our Fuel injection systems! In years past we stayed away from electronic fuel injection because to be honest 90% of the aftermarket stuff was junk! Stand alone EFI.'S were not very robust or reliable with limited tuning ability! After working hand and hand with a leading EFI manufacture together we have developed a very robust, reliable and extremely user friendly system. The belief fuel injection is not reliable as a carburetor in today's world is urban legend! Those who have owned carbureted vehicles, know very few if any carburetors ever make it to 100,000 miles with out needing a major carburetor rebuild.

600HP LS2
418 Cubic inch 600HP LS2 with AFR heads and stack EFI injection

In today's world it is demanded and expected for fuel injection motors to run 150,000 to 200,000 miles with out any problems. This is why all our major EFI components are OEM manufactured products. Parts like fuel injectors, fuel rails, O2 sensors and fuel pumps. Honestly who has more money then G.M or Ford to test and develop EFI parts at competitive prices. The aftermarket industry has a fraction of the R&D budget General Motors has! At Water Thunder Performance we tested our fuel injection system over and over in the field, on the dyno and on our own test boat! We offer three levels of Fuel Injected. motors starting from 500HP to 550HP and even 600HP! Nothing else has throttle response and low end torque like a fuel injected motor! There are five very distinct advantages to fuel injection, throttle response, low end torque, fuel economy, no engine run on and adjustability to a specific RPM or load!

500HP Fuel-Injected Hawk Step Hull
12'6" Hawk step hull with a 500HP fuel injected LS2. Utilizing a 2.68 Rotator soft drive and a 78" Power Shift prop with a 125HP nitrous kit!

When Water Thunder Performance begun testing electronic fuel injection on our personal boats. We realized the complete lack of service and technical support offered by most manufactures and their vendors, neither offered any tech support after the sale. Any problems encountered would only be resolved by us in house. Any upgrades or changes took months if they even happened at all. At one point I had a manufacture asking me how to resolve their various crank input signal problems. This was unacceptable from a business stand point so we teamed up with a leading EFI programer and manufacture and worked with them to Taylor fit their system to our needs. After months of testing on several different type of airboats we started offering these 100% complete EFI systems. The result is a 100% true turn key Fuel injection motor with no tuning or adjusting need by the consumer. I'm an old school carburetor guy so I had to learn it all myself, so we utilized a relay box and numbered all connections and if that wasn't simple enough we also supply a full description of all connections and components with pictures. A leading airboat manufacture installed one of our 550HP fuel injected motors in one of their boats and because of the easy to follow instructions and everything being test run, tunned and clearly labeled they never needed to call us for any technical assistance. That truly is 100% turn key! We truly offer 100% tech support but it is rarely needed! We also offer any upgrades or improved tune up's at no extra cost! Unlike some vendors who charge $300 an hour to just open their lap tops.

500HP Fuel-Injected Triple W
13' Triple W airboat with 500HP LS2 using a 2.68 soft drive Rotator and 78' Sensenich Super wide, Fuel economy was the number one priority, this boat was built for frogging! Because of this specific application we added a special 2nd program that allows him to switch to a fuel economy mode while frogging. This drastically improves his fuel economy below 3,000RPM

Another advantage with a Water Thunder Performance F.I. motor is our ability to meet your changing needs! If you modify your combination or change gear ratios, hulls or even a prop. Chances are we have tested and tunned for it already so we can adjust your fuel system and ignition curve to accommodate your needs. Another feature we offer is a second program or (map) enabling you to run low octane fuel or fulfill other special needs. This need became apparent a few day's after Katrina. When 93 octane fuel became hard if not impossible to find! After this catastrophe we developed and installed bad gas provisions for various government agency's enabling them to run rescue boats on low octane fuel. This second map can be programed for a multitude of uses such as frogging, towing, low octane fuel or even Ethanol. If throttle response, torque and tune ability is something you demand look into one of our Water Thunder Performance fuel injected motors!

550HP Fuel-Injected Airboat
14' Riveted hull, 550HP LS2 2.68 Rotator Soft Drive with a 78 Sensenich Wide Blade.

Carbureted

A good airboat motor vs. a good peak dyno motor!

To start things off, WaterThunder Performance does not participate in peak engine dyno number wars. Anyone can make peak horsepower claims, and the fact of the matter is, it's much easier to produce peak dyno numbers than it is to produce broad useable power. How much time does your airboat spend at wide open throttle anyway? Airboat engines that produce more BROAD power perform substantially better then engines that produces more peak power. This was noticed by NHRA ProStock in the early 90's when it was discovered motors that produced higher peak numbers on the dyno ran slower E.T.'s than a motor that produced less peak HP on the dyno. This is because most of the work performed is not at peak or max RPM's. We will not even get into those Dyno correction factors or how you can affect results just by pull procedures and heat cycles. It is our opinion that someone who uses a dyno to find 6 or so horsepower is using their dyno to build a better engine, and someone using it to prove peak numbers is using their dyno solely for marketing purposes.

Any of these following components will achieve higher peak HP numbers: a bigger carburetor, ported heads, bigger valves, bigger camshaft, bigger intake manifold, and turning up the RPM's. All of these things will increase peak horsepower numbers while reducing average power. Peak numbers look impressive on a Dyno sheet, however a peak horsepower motor that makes 600HP will be out performed on the hill and in the water by a properly designed airboat motor only producing 500HP.

At WaterThunder Performance our objective is to build the best performing engine for your specific needs. This is why we tailor each engine to the specific needs of the customer. A motor utilizing a 2.68:1 ratio gearbox will require a different camshaft grind and timing curve than a motor utilizing a 2:1 ratio gearbox, just as a 16ft boat requires a different timing curve and compression ratio than a 13ft boat. From supply boats in Alaska to law enforcement boats in Louisiana or Airboat manufacturers in Florida and the individual airboater, WaterThunder Performance Inc. provides our customers with the most specific tailored airboat engine packages available.