fully restored and customized supra rider
For sale… completely restored Supra Rider. You can own a piece of history with this boat. The rider was the first open bow ski boat ever built. I am the second owner and have the original bill of sale from when it was bought for $19,995 at the Charlotte boat show. The boat had about 350 hours when I got it .The boat had been babied, always stored on the trailer covered and under a carport. The boat was never left in the water for more than a weekend.
But as with most old Supras, Mother Nature got the best of it and the floor and stringers rotted out The original owner stopped using the boat in 96 or 95 after his kids went to college and stopped going to the lake. The boat sat from then till December 2006 when I bought it and started restoring it. I worked on it from December 2006 till July 2008.
I completely tore the boat apart, took the top half of the hull off to replace the floor and stringers. The new stringers were made out of Douglas fir that was then treated with rot doctor to preserve the wood, completely wrapped in fiberglass then fiber-glassed to the floor. There is enough fiberglass in this boat the wood could rot out and you would probably still be fine. The rudder box mount was reinforced with a 1/4 steel plate glassed into the hull and bolted to the stringers.
The whole hull was re gel coated because I did not like the old tan color and wanted a white boat. The original fiberglass was beautiful just faded with age and needed buffed, just not my color. I rebuild the engine which is a Chrysler 440 a really good marine engine that is rare to see in a ski boat. The engine has been bored out. The crank journals were line bored. The rotating assembly was balanced. It has forged flat top pistons, solid lifter performance cam, high flow aluminum heads, shaft mounted roller rockers, Edelbrock performer intake and marine carb, fabricated aluminum valve covers, Mallory marine distributor, Taylor plug wires, high output coil, and closed cooling system so there is antifreeze running through the engine block so you never have to worry about the block freezing and makes winterizing very easy. The transmission was rebuilt with all new forward and reverse clutches and seals, new heat exchangers for the transmission oil and for the engine oil.
I re-molded the fiberglass of the dash and put in all new gauges and switches. I added Perfect Pass Stargazer, GPS controlled cruise control system, custom billet dash, switch panel, and rack mount tilt steering helm. I made custom mounts to add a tower off a 2004 Supra SSV gravity games edition with board racks and tower speakers and a custom light bar with spot lights and LED lights. The boat has a Clarion sound system with ipod hookups and two 4 channel Clarion amps and transom remote. high output alternator with a custom 3 battery system, one for the starting circuit on the boat and the other two for the stereo and accessory circuits. The driver’s seat is from a 2006 Supra so it has the flip up bolster. The engine cover was reshaped to make it round and more modern and to give the interior a roomier feel. A custom molded panel to hold speakers and cup holders was added to the sides of the boat along with a custom observers seat.
The interior was completely reupholstered. All the seat frames were made out of azek board which is a PVC board, so you will never have the seats rot out again. In the spring of 2010, I removed the floor and added an infloor ballast system and made a composite floor so now the only wood left in this boat is the core of the stringers.
There are a ton of pictures on my facebook page. Just look for me, ken helfrich and you will see pictures through the whole build. I have 5 or 6 albums showing the whole build.
The boat is sitting on the original SMP trailer that has also been completely restored. I added another cross member for extra strength, made all new steps on the outside of the frame, added a rear bumper with flush mount tail lights and a prop guard, added a swing tongue with a new UFP disk brake actuator and new UPF disk brake torsion suspension axles. The axles and actuator were bought from Boatmate along with the new fenders and swing tongue kit. The trailer is a C channel frame which I think is better because all surfaces can be painted. The whole trailer was sandblasted then painted with a self etching primer followed by and epoxy primer/sealer and then an automotive enamel paint.
The trailer is sitting on 18" wheels with low profile tires. The brake lines are all either braided stainless or 304 stainless hard line. The whole trailer was rewired. All lights are wired with a ground running back to the plug and not just having the frame as ground so you should never have a problem with a bad ground. All wiring connections are soldered and shrink tubed where possible.
Since first building this boat and then working out all the kinks, I have never had a problem with it. No expense was spared in building this boat . It always starts right up and runs great. I can't count the number of times that while waiting to launch or load this boat that people asked me if it was a brand new boat. The only reason I am selling it is because I wanted a bigger boat so I could fit more people. I have over 25k put into this build and it really shows with all the little details.
you can email me at kenhelfrich (at) g mail
or call 412-805-0830
lots of pictures close to 1000 pictures at http://suprarider.shutterfly.com
when I first bought the boat
new stringers
after hours of spraying gelcoat
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