Jul 25

Jul 25 21 Eliminator Daytona Kaama Drive: Vintage Lake Hot Rod

For Ray Plasch it was almost love at first sight. He was looking for a boats and wanted something performance orientated. Ray’s uncle had a V drive and some of his friends had outboards and jet boats like Avengers and Tahitis back in the day. Boating around Northern California back in the eighties, there were all sorts of lake hot rods but when Ray saw this slightly used 1983 Eliminator 21’ Daytona he was intrigued. When he saw it had a Kaama surface drive, he was sold. “I saw the kaama surface drive which I knew nothing about but it just looked performance.” And he was right. The Daytona was a sweet deal, priced well because although it was only 4 years old, it needed some TLC and the 454 Ci engine wasn’t’ running.

Ray keeps the Daytona in mint condition. The interior was all redone by him after buying it.

The original owner had the boat custom made for over $23k, which was a lot back then, and Ray got it for $7,500. He knew he could fix anything wrong and at the end of the day he was getting a very recent 21 Daytona for major discount. The Kaama really sets it apart. The Daytona was made in every configuration possible over the years; jets, outboards, sterndrives, twin outboards, you name it. But the Kaama is really rare and cool.

Since Ray was confident in his mechanical abilities, he got the engine running right away. After a few years the seats had been worn badly, so Ray rebuilt them and reupholstered them. Since the California sun had taken its toll before Ray got it, he spent some time polishing it back to like new.

Next, Ray wanted to address the engine, so he rebuilt it with new parts and higher compression as well as putting the exhaust through the transom instead of the original Bassett over the transom setup. With that, the beautiful blue Daytona runs 72 MPH at 5000 RPM. As Ray said, “back in the eighties, that was hauling the mail.” And he’s right, that’s fast in any decade but back then over 70 MPH was moving and not many looked better doing it. With 5 people on the boat, the Daytona doesn’t slow down much and can cruise at 70 MPH, and if you throttle down, the boat is quite efficient, according to Ray.

The 21 Daytona has been made for a long time, I think the first one was in 1982 but that might not be accurate. But, it was so popular because it was extremely low and sleek but could handle all sorts of power. Fast, good looking and it made a great lake or river hot rod. The 19’ was amazing but the 21’ was a just a bit more practical, making it one of the coolest Daytona’s ever.

Ray loves the center pod tunnel, it can run right over some chop “like it’s on a cushion of air.” With the Kaama surface drive, it drives beautifully, steering is effortless and it will pop on plane when you feather the throttle right and once it’s up and running, the performance is awesome.

A note from Ray, “I know there is more i can get out of it, surface drives are stern lifters and the Daytonas with outboards in this vintage of hull air out much better especially the ones with rockers on the tunnels. I've always wanted to get a Ron Hill propeller, back in the day they did a lot of testing with this hull and the new evinrude V8 and he told me they make a big difference. Another thing about the kaama is the drive itself has over driven gears. They have 13% or 18% overdriven gear sets. I have 13%. Gear reduction took place in the transmission on a kaama 1:50 to 1:00. My boat was not rigged with the kaama transmission as it would not fit because of the drop, it was designed for big offshore boats not a low slung Daytona. My trans is a72C which is 1 to 1 so I have no gear reduction. I'm actually over driven with a 24 pitch prop that's not good. I’m calculating 30% slip! I'd like to try a 21 pitch but props are not easy to find . They are 19 spline like smaller Arneson drives or TRS # 3 drives, not a lot out there.”

The gelcoat work still looks great, something Eliminator was always known for.

Running an older Kaama setup will have some challenges for parts and props but in the end, Ray has it running pretty great. And you just don’t see this very often, which makes it so great. Ray is retiring soon and plans to tinker with it and I’m sure he’ll have running even faster. What a great boat and story too.