rexcramer1

Whatever clown, I told you before I dont need your stupid comments screwing up my thread. I have had 5 different boats with singles and twins, and have been boating my whole life. I am also experienced enough to do my homework and research as much as possible before a purchase.

Again, crawl back under your rock and shut your piehole, if its possible

socalstone

I would do the 500efi over the carbed version.
Will be definitely be more efficient with fuel, might make more power? (even though they are both 500s), prolly easier to start/more reliable, and overall less headache.

Don't shy away from anything with a 525efi as that would be even better.

bob_t

I had a HP500 carb in a 27 Fountain and then 500 EFI's in a 29 Fountain and a twin step 35 Fountain. The carb engine has smaller lobe separation on the cam, so they sound a little more "lopey" than the 500 EFI, and supposedly are a little more prone to reversion, for the same reason. Never had any problems with the 500 carb engine. Always ran great ... so did the EFI's. Valve springs were the main complaint of the 500 carb engine ... they fixed that on the EFI. Supposedly, the same boat with the 500 carb engines had a little more power than the EFI, from what a friend of mine who raced them, told me. Our carb engine always started just about as easy as the EFI engine. The carb engine has very basic electonics, primarily ignition. Can't read engine hours off the the 500 carb engine unless there is an external hour meter. The EFI obviously has more electronics, and can poll the ECM for some limited data, includinge total engine hours, but nowheres close to the nightmare of electronics and sophistication on the newer 525 EFI. The 500 carb engine doesn't take a Master's degree, a laptop computer, and diacom software to diagnose a problem, either.

excursion

Another Computer Cowboy that comes on here and starts a bunch of crap, 29 post, back that f u c k off a s s whole and get a clue.
This is why OSO should be for the PAYING members only, to keep the cheapo's off here.

rexcramer1

James, its dicks like you who give boating a bad name. I am done wasting another bit of bandwidth on you, douchebag.

Socalstone and Bob, thanks for your insight. My goal is to find a boat with a 525, but more than likely I will end up with an HP 500 boat since they will be more likely to be in my price range. I think a HP 500 would be pretty easy to build up to 550-560 hp and be pretty reliable.

Bob I know you have had them all in the same boat I want to buy, I have read a ton of your posts over the last month or so, they have been like a "29 Fountain 101" for me. I remember reading in one post your wife didnt like the blower whine of the 575, was it really noticeable from the back seat? There is an HP 500 boat for sale near me that has what looks like a 177 or 250 c.i. blower on it, I would have to cross it off my list if everyone in the back seat needed hearing protection all the time lol.

excursion

Good one, enjoy your Montauk..........dreamer.....

bob_t

Two friends have/had 27 Fountains with HP500s' and 250 B&Ms' on top. One had a single carb setup, the other had a 2 carb setup. The one with the 2 carb setup always ran great ... the one with the 1 carb setup always had problems stalling when docking or putting it on the trailer. He sent the carb to Nickerson or Grant (don't remember anymore), and it was a little better. He ended up going to a 2 carb setup and no more problems. I know the 1 carb setup had something like a 1100 Dominator (not exactly sure on that, but it was huge CFM) and his biggest problem was too low air velocity at low rpm and giving poor signal to carb. I think the 2 carb setups were holley 700's or 750's ... thats been about 11 years ago.

The blower whine was noticable on both those boats above ~ 5000 rpm ... I never sat in the back seat, so I don't know how annoying that was . The whine on the 575 in our 29 seemed to be much more than I remembered in either of their 27's though. When my friend would "race" people at the local lake, usually when he got around 5000 rpm's, or so, the "other boat" definitely knew there was a blower under the engine hatch ... was actually quite funny to see their expressions as the rpm's picked up.

One of the 27's was a straight hull and that topped out 79-81 mph on gps running a Rev 4 prop and 1.36:1 bravo drive. The other one was a step hull and that ran ~78 mph with 28P B1 prop and 1.50:1 drive. Reason the step hull boat didn't go any faster is because it would get into really bad chine walk around 78 mph. Our 29 with the 575 ran ~80 mph on gps. Our current 29 with 525 EFI runs 76-78 mph gps, but it could probably do a little more with better/bigger prop, less fuel and fewer people (26P non-labbed B1 LH on it now ... gets on plane a little easier with that prop compared to a 28P and we always have nearly full tank of fuel and 4-6 people in the boat).

rexcramer1

Thanks Bob. So at 50-60 mph the whine was not an issue, only at or near WOT? I don't think that would be so bad then.

Now that I think about it, this one must be a 177ci blower because I dont think you can even put two carbs on it. Guy claims it runs 83mph, which would seem to be about right...

FuelinAround

Scoops make the whine horrible. If no scoop not as bad.... Guys boat with blower I run around in drives me nuts if I get the center seat. Will literally give you a headache and make your head buzz all day if your right in front of the scoop. Just my 2 cents. One thing I would think about is if this is your last boat or not? If it's not resale on efi engines is always more attractive to me as you can pull hours at rpms. You can add an external but still like the factory myself.