Eliminator Boats 28 Speedster Tops 170 MPH
John Heieie’s 28 Speedster from Eliminator Boats reached a top speed of 174 mph on Arizona’s Roosevelt Lake recently.
After spending much of the summer getting the setup right on his new 28 Speedster from Eliminator Boats, John Heieie of Casa Grande, Ariz., recently ran his new 28-foot catamaran faster than 170 mph on his hometown waterway northeast of Phoenix—Lake Roosevelt.
Powered by a pair of Larry’s Engine & Marine supercharged 555-cubic-inch big-block engines producing 1,050 horsepower each, the boat actually reached 174 mph on GPS as shown in the photo of the Livorsi Marine gauge below. That’s easily the fastest 28-foot Eliminator ever, according to Eliminator owner Bob Leach. (Greg Olson’s 192-mph 33 Daytona that won the 2012 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout is the fastest boat from the Mira Loma, Calif., company.)
“Originally I was hoping to get 150 or 160 mph out of the boat,” said Heieie, who previously owned a 2004 Eliminator 28 Daytona with a pair of MV7-10 engines from Ilmor Marine. “I was going for acceleration, top speed wasn’t as important. I knew the boat would be fast, but once we got it dialed in I hit 174 mph—and I was on the rev-limiters.
 A pair of supercharged 1,050-hp engines from Larry’s Marine and Engines provided the power in the 28-foot Eliminator. |
 The Livorsi Marine speedometer captured Heieie’s 174-mph top speed in his 28 Speedster. |
“I knew I was going fast, but I didn’t know how fast,” Heieie continued. “Once I stopped, I checked the recall on the speedometer. Just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I did it again and repeated the speed. If it wasn’t for the limiters, I probably could have kept going. There was nobody on the lake and there was just a little ripple—the conditions were perfect.”
Heieie said the boat is set up with IMCO Marine SCX4 drives that were blueprinted by Brad Stewart of E-Ticket Boats in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Putting the power to the water is a pair of 16½”-diameter and 38″-pitch props from Hering Propellers that have an 18-degree rake. All of the rigging and setup was handled by Larry Peto and the crew at Larry’s Engine and Marine in Tucson, Ariz.
Utilizing the new 4.5L Whipple Superchargers, the engines are unique in the fact that they’re set up with a water/methanol injection system. Peto said the benefits of using the water/methanol mixture allow him to tune the engines more aggressively to produce more power yet retain the pump-gas capability, an important factor because Heieie only has fairly low-grade fuel available on the lake where he keeps his boat.
Both Leach and Stewart were impressed with the top speed of the catamaran, especially since the elevation at Roosevelt Lake is higher than 2,000 feet.
“John’s boat felt perfect—it wasn’t scary at all,” said Stewart, who ran the boat above 150 mph during testing on Lake Havasu. “The faster I went in the boat, the more it felt like it was leveling out.”
Peto said Heieie is “tickled to death” with the 28-footer.
“According to John, the boat is running wonderfully at speed,” Peto said. “Obviously with 2,000-plus horsepower, the boat is going to be extremely fast. In all fairness Eliminator’s design is great. That 28 is a fantastic boat and John’s is one with state-of-the-art laminates from the carbon fiber to the DecoLite. A lot of credit needs to go Brad Stewart, too, for the modifications he did to those lower units to be able get the boat running so smooth at speed.”
Related stories
Excitement Builds for Desert Storm Poker Run & Street Party
and then