Todd Kelly's 725hp V8 Nissan-powered race boat: Exclusive, Q&A and video

Our good friends Todd and Rick Kelly are well-known supercar drivers, but away from the race tracks what is their next love? Boats, of course. But not just any old craft. The Mildura-born brothers have ski-racing in their blood and have found a novel way of dealing with their surplus equipment and their rarely idle hands.

The Kelly brothers have developed a very special 5.2lt Nissan VK56DE engine for their race boat, Mojo. Created with a variety of components from the early days of the Nissan Motorsport program, the wickedly powerful 720hp V8 replaces a NASCAR engine that powered the boat in events like the Southern 80.

Of course, we couldn't wait to find out more about this serious bit of ski-race kit based on a Force hull, built with countless customisations, hours of toil from the Kelly brothers in their 'down time', using their unique and vast experience.

So here are seven questions in a Q&A and an exclusive video about what floats the Kelly brother's very special race boat...

Q1: When did you get this specific boat, Mojo?
A: We brought the hull, probably about four years ago, because we had enough left over parts, like the drive and bits and pieces, to get most of the boat finished. So we thought we would get another project happening, but then it sat around for two or three years.

Q2: And as far as the engine itself, is that predominantly bits from the engine program here or have you had to source them elsewhere?
A: So we kind of just scraped up all of the old bits out of the race cars and built an engine out of it. So it’s not completely optimised, we have come a long way with the cylinder head and bits and pieces from where that engine is at. So when the time is right and there are a few bits lying around we’ll be able to upgrade and get a little bit more out of it than it has currently got.

Q3: Is owning a race team just an elaborate excuse just for you to get things for your boat?
A: Well I’m cleaning out a few of the storage areas at work at the moment, it’s just insane the amount of parts that are still quite good to use on things, that are either not good enough to race with or have been superseded by something better. You name it and there is probably one of them sitting around. It’s almost a crime not to build the odd thing to use up all of those bits and pieces every now and then.

Q4: And as far as the specifics of the engine can you just run us through some of the numbers?
A: It’s a 5.2 litre, so we have just bored it out a little bit more than the race cars. The exhaust system is also slightly different to optimise the revs we pull on the boat, which is around 8500rpm. The inlet manifolds are also a little different to get the RPM and the power curve that we want as well, it makes about 720 horsepower. But if we played with it a bit more and sorted a few more bits out, we’d be able to get a little bit more out of it than that. We haven’t even optimised the hull yet, we’ve been playing around with propellers and bits and pieces to get a bit more out of it. But basically it does almost 100mph with two skiers, which is pretty competitive for a 5.2 litre engine.

Q5: And is the Southern 80 like the Bathurst of that world?
A: Yes, spectator-wise and entry-wise it is the biggest race. We have won our class a few times and we’ve held the record in a couple of different classes. Our record actually got broken in the 5.2 Litre Class. So we are keen to try and tune ourselves up and the engine up and get that one back at some stage.

Q6: You’ve done some crazy things with the carsales network so far this year, it’s good to have another one for Townsville (racing this weekend).
A: It is, we promised Caruso a fishing trip, well any of the drivers, if we won a race. I think that is mentioned on TV. So I have hired a boat for Monday after Townsville to go and catch some fish thanks to Michael. So it is definitely a boating weekend!

Q7: You’re in a unique position where the carsales network
A: Carsales is such a great brand to work with. With everything that Rick and I are into, like earth mowing equipment, caravans or boats, the carsales brand covers it. We’ve been able to do some really fun things with carsales, bikesales, trucksales and boatsales this year, so hopefully we can do a lot more.

More on the Townsville 400, Todd's 500th supercar race, on the link. Follow Todd on his <a title="Facebook page and be sure to checkout the <a title=" for more on Todd and his love of fast boats.