misslead

Bill I was wonderin if you ever have testd the R & D trim tabs VS. the worx trim tabs? On a 96 XP and if so what were the results. Thanks for your valuable input.

Mr. Bill

No, but I suspect that both would do an equal job if Worx's tabs have the 3 degree negative type that R&D offers. When the very first tabs were designed, and also the center ride plate extention piece, my 1995 XP was the boat used in the design of their trim tabs, cener ride plate extension and nozzels, and I was the first to test them out on my wifes racing limited 1995 XP that I built for her to use out here in the IJSBA races.
The orginal tabs were not machined for the negative 3 degree upkick. They were just straight like the planing surface of the hull or what I called zero degree tabs. Later after many were produced and sold to the public, I found that if I angled the round mounting surface of the backsdie of the aluminum trim tabs where it meets to the hull bottom recess that Sea Doo provided in the hull bottom, the bow would ride a bit higher, but still not propose. This allowed us to gain a bit more top speed from the hull attitude as it was trimed out at high speed. I also found out that the center plate was no help to us for racing wether it was zero degree or three degree. I later informed R&D of my findings and they started offering a choice of of degree and 3 degree tabs and the matching center section. Of course, the Kawasaki team protested the use of extended trim tabs to the IJSBA in the limited classes and we were told by the IJSBA to remove them and that we could only use oem tabs, but were still allowed the center ride plate extension that was allready approved in the IJSBA rulebook, because it fell into their rules on rideplate extensions that had been designed for standup watercraft years before runabout racing was a class in IJSBA. I and R&D Racing approached the IJSBA to change the rules and add aftermarket trim tabs that were extended beyond the end of the hull. Of course we were denied that rule change for the limited classes, but were allowed to use them in modified classes the next year. You must understand that the IJSBA was an extension of Kawasaki Corporation USA from the time that the IJSBA was formed around 1974 or so, until sometime quite a few years later in the mid '90s when the IJSBA was to be governed by representives from all of the big 4 manufactures. The other big three, Yamaha, Sea Doo and Polaris told the IJSBA that they would refuse to support the IJSBA to the tune of 250K per year each because they had no say-so in the rules process, which allways favored Kawasaki over the rest.

This left me with a delimea of knowing I could improve the speed and handling by the use of trim tabs at an upward angle of 3 degrees after alot of my earlier testing, starting at 1 degree, then adding a degree until I found the correct amount of degrees to get the job done, but still maintain proper hull attitude, using less nozzel tilt upwards. So, I approached Kevin Andrews, Owner of Andrews Machining who was competing on a Sea Doo XP in the expert limited runabout division at local events out here. I asked Kevin to buy a sheet of black plastic material that we could use to duplicate the oem trim tabs at his machine shop, but would go unnoticed during technical inspections and for all intents and purposes look identical to oem tabs. The only thing that was different in design from the R&D aluminum tabs was that our tabs could not extend beyond the back of the hull as they had to look like oem tabs. I found that our new plastic tabs helped the hull gain a little "free speed" that was not produced by the engine, but from the attitude of the hull riding on the water. Sure, we did not get the full benefits of the longer tabs, but we did make someting that would pass inspections and go completely unnoticed by our competitors and the IJSBA technical inspectors and it improved the speed of our boats.

R&D kept their drive going for a rules change to allow extended tabs and within a year or so, Kawasaki did some testing of their own and found out Sea Doo was onto something as their Kawasaki hulls would propose too and could benefit from a set of bolt on trim tabs on the rear of their SS hulls. Shortly afterwards, the IJSBA changed the rules to allow extended tabs in Limited and Modified runabout racing.

Bullett Marine took it one step further, as the owner of Bullitt had vast experence using cavatation plates on the full sized racing boats they built for themselves and their customers for several years before they got into watercraft racing. Mel Miller did the machining of the orginal adjustable trim tabs for Bullett Marine. Danny at Bullettt allowed me to buy a couple of sets from him to use on our race runabouts. I then got his permission to manufacture as many as I wanted as he had no plans to retail them publically. Miller soon got tired of making them for me and I went to Andrews Machine and Kevin made me batches of the aluminum plates as I ordered them in sets of 50 trim tab setups ( it takes 300 seperate aluminum pieces to make 50 sets of our handle bar lever operated trim tab sets ) I went out and sourced out the stainless steel hardware, hiem joints, screws, polishing and anodizing process, and the levers and cables to put together a total of about 400 sets that I sold to others who wanted the advantages that our teams had.
Not too long afterwards, West Coast Performance offered their own adjustable setups after buying a coulpe from me, but like all things West Coast produced, they made them overengineered, big and bulky and heavy and were much more expensive to manufacture and sell. At that time West Coast was producing their own carbon fiber hulls, steering, nozzels, gas caps and just about anything they could produce for engine mounting and other knick knacks, including the adjustable trim tabs as they had a big contract with Bombardier Corp. to run a full-on Factory Race Team made up of Dustin Farthing, Tommy Bonachi, and Greg Stuart, son of the owner of Skat Trak.

Much to Bob Santos' ( owner of Westcoast Performance ) dismay, Farthing refused to use the WestCoast adjustable trim tab system as he perferred to use my setup on his West Coast Racing hulls. Bob allowed Dustin to have them, but still required Bonachi and Stuart to use his own trim setup because he wanted to market them too. I found that quite amusing at the time, and I gave them the two kits for free. Bob Santos and I had a good relationship going long before this as he was the main guy in convincing Sea Doo that I deserved one of the very first rave valve, boozka piped 785 motors that Sea Doo's Racing R&D department had developed by cutting off the clutch housing of their 670 Rotax sled motors, adding a yellow 587 mag housing to the front of the cases and boring and stroking them out to 785 cc for use in pro modifed class racing watercraft in 1993 on the national tour and at Havasu. Bob co-sponsonered my 1994 team too, along with MSD and Sea Doo Racing.

Later, we figured out a way to tye in the tilt nozzel too when we activated the handlebar lever for the trim tabs should we decide to do that. But, we liked the drop tabs and keeping the nozzel straight as the thrust was altered with it dropped enough to control the holeshot. The drop tabs were doing that job for us and we felt the accelleration was best with a straight nozzel.