iheartmy206ls

Hi Formula Forum!

First off, I'd like to say how awesome OSO, and specifically the Formula forum, has been in helping me purchase/troubleshoot/fix things with my Birds. I generally don't post much, but do try to stay on top of the threads and do some pretty extensive searches to find info. Thanks guys for putting so much information out there for us novice owners! It is much appreciated.

I'm hoping I can bounce a few things off the group to help make sure I'm not breaking my beloved boat.

A little background: After my 206LS was drowned by Hurricane Sandy, I started my search for a replacement. I ended up buying a 1995 252 LS with a 454 Mag EFI RWC with Silent Thunder. The engine has about 570 hours. The boat was really well maintained, even stored in a heated building year-round, and spent most of her life in fresh water. She looks like she just came off the Formula production line... it's really that clean. Of course I had a survey completed, and everything was great. I did some super sleuthing and found out that she's originally from NJ, then was shipped to Wisconsin, and now I've brought her back home to NJ. She spends her time in a lift slip in a boat house at a marina.

Here's the issue/maybe non-issue: About 4 weeks ago I was out in the Barnegat Bay, cruising at about 3400 RPMs and noticed my temp gauge doing a dance between 100 and 180. I immediately backed off and could tell that something wasn't quite right. The engine didn't want to go above 2800 RPM and was running rough. I decided to puttputt my way back to dock and had the mechanic waiting. He hopped aboard, took one listen and said "whoa! Not good!" There was a little bit of water in the oil. I put her back on the lift and told the mechanic to go to town. Turns out that the risers were leaking and compression check revealed that a head gasket blew. Since the engine was in pieces, I had him do the following:

Send out the head with the blown gasket to be cleaned up/machined
Replace both head gaskets
Replace the manifolds and risers with Thumper Power
Add fresh water flush
Replace the impeller
Replace the flame arrestor with a K&N
Non-engine work: replace the helm and steering cable (there was too much play)

I finally got her back yesterday (and lightened my wallet by $5k) and spent a few hours cleaning/polishing/general TLC before heading out to give a test run. When out, I immediately noticed a huge difference in hole shot. She jumps right out of the water. I did about 30-40 mins at 3200 RPM to check things out, then decided to do a WOT run. She seemed to do quite well, but maxed out at 4700 RPM. Before the gasket issue, I could turn my 4-blade 21P prop with a solid 5000. I backed off and did another WOT but from idle. I looked back and was blowing quite a bit of steam. I slowly brought her back to idle and there was a slight amount of steam for about a min, then it stopped. When I throttled up, only to get on plane, not full, again there were plumes of steam from both sides. The temp gauge appears to be normal at about 150-160. The risers were hot but not blistering. The engine seemed to be running really well.

Here's my question: (and sorry for the LONG post/background) Am I being a boating hypochondriac or should I be concerned about the steam and 4700 vs 5000 RPM? My mechanic is awesome, used to build engines and race for a world champion team so I trust his work.

Thanks in advance for any feedback/suggestions/comments!

Cheers!
J

Port Monster

iTrader: (1)

Did you change your impeller and back flush your system? How is the gauge looking at that speed? Did you confirm the manifolds/ riser temps with a laser gun? Just some thoughts.

iheartmy206ls

Hi Port,
Thanks for the reply. The impeller was changed, however I'm not sure if my mechanic back flushed. I'll have to ask. The gauges all appear to be fine. The temp fluctuates between 150 and about 170 based on usage. During WOT it is a steady 150. When I return to idle, it moves up to 170 for a brief amount of time, then backs down to around 150ish. Oil pressure is about 30 at idle and 50-60 under power.

I've been curious about the actual riser temps, so I'm going to stop at Lowes and pickup a laser on my way to the marina this afternoon. I'll report back tonight.

J

iheartmy206ls

I picked up a laser to check the temps. After a decent 4K run, the starboard riser was 129 and the port was 109. The temp gauge stays at around 130 for the first 20 min of "no wake", then goes up to about 150. During a hard run, it will elevate to about 160-170, but that's as high as she goes.

The steam becomes increasingly more pronounced as the day goes on and the engine is hot.

Anyone have a thought? Am I concerned about something that's fairly typical?

Thanks!

sprink58

You may be over analyzing things. If you don't have any water in the oil or "Milkshake" under the valve covers...run that thing and enjoy it.

If your water temp where you are running is on the cool side <75*...a bit of steam is normal.

Sometimes you can look at something so long and hard that even what's right looks wrong!! LOL We are all guilty of that at one time or another.

masi242

I know has been discussed before here, but I don`t think this is any thing to worry about. I assume you have the silent thunder platform, if you do this will be normal hot water dumps into you platform that has some cool water in it. Hot and cool water will create some steam. Today we left the beach and I was thinking about this and you cold see steam coming out of the platform and i cruised back to the dock at about 3100 and you could see the steam. I have only loged about 300 hours on this engines

iheartmy206ls

Thanks Sprink and Masi!

I was hoping that I was making a bigger deal than there needs to be.

Happy boating!!!
J