I saw this boat on Ebay, And on a whim & a fancy I decided that I would buy it & set it up for some EA (4s) offshore cat racing at our club.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/230889278...ht_1953wt_1397

Unfortunately they sent an Aqua-Passion instead of the Aqua-Mania. No biggie, it's the same boat. Just sounds a bit girly.
I was fully aware that the motor & ESC were way too small & that the drive shaft would need upgrading. But I had enough gear lying around not being used.

Well it arrived Friday afternoon & I gutted it. There was a radio box moulded in as part of the top deck. Quite good really, but I attacked that with a Dremel tool & out she came.
Next I epoxied a couple of lengths of carbon fibre rod to the hull & motor mounts.
I added a SSS 3674 2075 4pole motor, Hi Model GX200A ESC., a couple of battery trays & an ESC tray.
The servo was fitted to a wooden mount & Epoxied into place.
A big surprise was the drive shaft. It was 3/16 but crimped into the stub which was running in a very sloppy bit of brass tube in the strut.
The angle of the stuffing tube & strut was way off about 15 degrees from the waterline.
So the stuffing tube was bent to level it out, the strut was fitted with some lead teflon glacier bushes & reinstalled level & slightly above the bottom of the sponsons. This meant cutting some of the strut off as it was hitting the bottom of the boat.
A good point about the strut is that it is bolted on to the hull level with the heels of the sponsons & not out on the overhang. This makes for much better handling, combined with the fact that the rudder is offset also.
So it hit the water on Saturday & was fount to handle extremely well. Full noise in the turns. Didn't even look like flipping or spinning out. The strut needed to come up a bit more so had to take it out & slot the hole a bit more. Put it back in & hopping dissapeared & the speed was up a bit.
Sunday was a test day at out race club, but overnight I swapped the motor for a TP Power 4082 2180kv motor.
Speeds were up spinning an M445. Still takes the corners at full noise.
But I didn't check the tightness of the motormount screws & one came loose, the motor twisted out of the mount & the shaft snapped at the end of the stuffing tube.. No other damage & it's an easy fix. The mount is the type where the holes are slotted up to the top of the mount.
That's 7 classes I'll be running in this year.
What fun.
Paul.

Great write up Paul, been looking for some details on that boat for a while and you listed everything I wanted to know.
Now just got to go down the lake at Coomera on Sunday check out joining the club and make sure there is a class for running these there.

Glad it helped you a bit.
If the club doesn't run the class you want, You can always join our club at Petrie in the Lakeside Raceway complex. There's a few people that travel from the south & north coasts to race there.
Give us a shout if you are interested.
Cheers.
Paul.

Cool looking hull.
Maybe the Aqua Passion / Aqua Mania switch up is a copyright issue?

No. Not really. I went back to the E bay site & it is advertised as the 'Aqua Mania / Passion' in one section of the page.
All the photos have Aqua Mania on them. I just assumed that's what I would get.
I didn't even notice the Passion reference when I ordered it.
No worries though. She runs well with the changes I made, & looks good out on the water. Hopefully the new shaft will arrive before next Sundays' race day.
Cheers.
Paul.