XXX Outerlimits 47-Footer To Disturb The Peace Again
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Projects: XXX Outerlimits 47-Footer To Disturb The Peace Again
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The founder of Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats in Bristol, R.I., the late Mike Fiore once confided to a reporter that XXX—a 2004 canopied 47 GTX—was among his favorite builds. That made perfect sense in that the 47-footer originally powered by Sterling Performance engines began its life as Fiore’s personal boat, but still that was a high praise from a man who could own any Outerlimits he wanted.
The big V-bottom, which topped out at 161 mph in its heyday, changed hands and power packages a few times during the years. Louisiana’s Michael Pierce bought the boat in 2014 before selling it to Texan Cass Shewbart a couple of years later.
Thanks to Factory Billet, Cass Shewbart’s reinvented XXX Disturbing The Peace Outerlimits is ready for the 2022 top-speed shootout season.
A beloved member of the go-fast boating community, Pierce is gone—he died in an automobile accident in 2019—as is Fiore. But the 47 GTX they both fell in love with is still around. And thanks to Shewbart and Factory Billet engine builder Mike Faucher, it will be back on the water this season.
By the time Shewbart bought XXX and renamed it XXX Disturbing The Peace, it was powered by a pair of engines he didn’t love. So he reached out to Faucher at the boutique powertrain company based in Lake Zurich, Ill., to help him rebuild the 632-cubic-inch, Whipple-supercharged beasts.
The boat’s original triple-seat rear bench has been converted to a more spacious two-seat setup complete with cupholders.
“Factory Billet is XXX with a bustle, so they are basically the same boat with the same bottom design,” said Faucher, who worked at Outerlimits before joining the Factory Billet team. “So it is neat being able to apply a lot of the same things we’d done with our boat to the XXX boat.”
When the project started, Shewbart had hoped to save all reusable parts from the boat’s existing engines. Faucher was game to give it a try, but not much turned out to salvageable. With the exception of their original chief heads, quad-rotor Whipple superchargers and intake manifold, almost everything on and in the rebuilt engines is new.
Faucher started with a pair of Dart blocks he line-bored and balanced and went from there. Most notably, he replaced the engines’ existing electronic management system with a new MoTec system—the same system used on Factory Billet’s dual-calibration engines—and its accompanying wiring, wire harnesses and information screens.
“When they went through the superchargers, they found one of the gears was missing a couple of teeth,” Shewbart said. “That was in the middle of COVID and Whipple couldn’t get us a replacement part, so they built one in the Factory Billet machine shop. Had I not brought the boat to place with a full machine shop, I’d probably still be trying to get it to run.”
Courtesy of Shewbart, a little SeaDeck humor aft of the 47-footer’s cockpit.
Added Faucher, “If we were to back up and do it again, we’d start from scratch. It’s truly harder to go back in and rebuild.”
Running race fuel, the reimagined engines produce 1,550 to 1,575 hp a side. With a pulley change and pump gas, they make approximately 1,300 hp.
Enjoy more images of the project in the slideshow above.
A few weeks ago, Faucher visited Shewbart in the Lone Star State to run the repowered beauty. In addition to engine replacement, the boat’s graphics have updated and its original five-seat cockpit was converted to a more spacious and comfortable four-seat setup.
The initial test session with XXX Disturbing The Peace floored them.
“We were both impressed with the power, speed and how quickly the engines spooled up,” Shewbart said. “It’s instant power.”
Parts fabrication at Factory Billet included a new gear for one of the Whipple superchargers on the boat’s twin engines.
Though Shewbart is in the process of changing the gear ratios in the boat’s Mercury Racing No. 6 drives from 1.50:1 to 1.42:1 so he can use more-efficient, smaller propellers than the 39-inch-pitch props he used with Faucher in its recent test session, he’s ready to run it this season. He plans to campaign XXX Disturbing The Peace in two events in his home state—the Texoma Throw Down and the Texas Outlaw Challenge—as well as in the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Missouri if his schedule allows.
“I am going to make the most of it,” said Shewbart, who owns Liquid Prozac, a 2020 model-year Outerlimits SL 44 V-bottom powered by twin Mercury Racing 860 engines. “I just want everyone know that although this boat has a reputation for being unreliable, it wasn’t the boat’s fault. The fault was with the guys turning the wrenches. We now have the very best there is in power.”
Faucher is equally excited to see XXX Disturbing The Peace back on the water.
“That boat has a lot of history,” he said. “And now it has a lot of potential again.”
Powered by Mercury Racing 860 engines, this Outerlimits SL 44 is Shewbart’s everyday boat.
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