Joe,

Let me unzip my pants so the record can be set straghit. We offered to give your money back for the superchargers so that we would not have to deal with you, your boat, or engines again while trying to satisfy you. This had nothing to do with fuel in your oil of the second engine. Our reputation is not at stake, nor is yours, a fair amount of money is not at stake, you want $25,000 free and clear and we will not pay that ridiculous sum of money.

So lets touch on the information:

Fact: Your boat had very poor water pressure and at one point, 0 water pressure and subsequently, bad water cooling and poor protection against steam developing in your engine. We did not design your factory installed water pickup system.

Fact: Your stock 6.2MPI engines come without oil coolers.

Fact (from your word): You changed oil 3 times in a total of 71 hours of engine run time.

Fact: After the 71 hours of operating time, oil was checked by a quality unbiased mechanic. Within 2 hours afterwards, port engine bearings seized (2 to 3) due to lack of lubrication.

Fact: Quality unbiased mechanic would see, smell and feel gas in oil when inspected if there were signs of oil.

Fact (from your word): You were watching oil pressure and at no time, did you see it drop before or during engine failure.

Fact: If you are telling me you don't know to watch oil pressure, there's a larger problem. You even told me that's what you were taught when "flying," oil pressure was your lifeline.

Fact: We fixed your first engine that scorched a piston due to lack of water at our expense even though we have nothing to do with the water system.

Fact: We installed a water restrictor to increase water pressure because no other water pickup was installed.

Fact: Water restrictors increase pressure, not flow.

Fact: During testing, it was evident that at certain points in the way the boat was trimmed, the engine got very little to know water flow. From conversations with you, this was in the area that you would typically cruise at or near.

Fact: No water flow = very bad!

Fact: You were told at length about water pressure and the water problems that your boat had, as well as the danger of operating at these points.

Common information: Because the oil was checked by a quality mechanic and no gas in the oil was found, we have to assume that there were no traces of gas in the oil at that time. With this in mind, in order for your theory to work, the engine would have to produce enough gas in the oil to not lube the bearings in that "half a tank" of gas that you said you ran. Considering there were no signs of gas in the oil in the first 71 hours as witnessed by the person changing the oil 3 times, it's hard to believe in the last 2 hours or "half a tank" that you can have enough gas in the oil to sacrifice lubrication when it never did it before. Same computer program, same blower pulley, etc.

When people say your motor ran out of oil, they're refering to the fact that there was not enough lubrication in the oil pan to keep the bearings cool and lubricated. This does not mean there was no oil in the engine. You must understand a few things, first, with no oil cooler, oil will get hot, especially on a blower motor, under boost, at high rpm. Depending on oil quality and blend, pressure will typically fall if temps get hot. If theres not enough pressure, there's not enough lubrication. Oil can also vacate the pan, it can run up into the valley, into the valve train and running only a 6qt system, it makes it easier for oil pressure to fall under harder runs.

Your second engine had gas in the oil after the 71st hour. Prior, no gas was ever reported or found. Was the oil checked before going out with one supercharged engine and one nonsupercharged? I take this as the 71st hour, I would have to imagine it was checked since oil was a worry with the other motor. If no gas was found, that leads us to the last 15 minutes of running, just enough time to see oil pressure was low. I note, not at the 69 hour interval where the oil was checked in both engines.

Also, the second engine was never torn apart after being run without water, nor has a compression or leak down test been performed on it. When it was run here, there was no gas in the oil, the first 71 hours showed no signs of gas in the oil because there has been no discussion of this and I know I would get a call instantly if you did.

Also, I'm not bringing Mike into this, I'm bringing his engines into this, since you know this as a common example that we both know about. Mike is a good friend of mine, but that doesn't change the facts.

Thanks,
Dustin

Ok, so how do you see us resolving our differences? I'm open to suggestions.


p.s. Will concede the use of "fair" as a slip of the tongue/keyboard. Only meant that the amount of money is not immaterial.

Dustin- First, please do not consider these questions an attack on you or your company, they are not intended to be. I have a 26 daytona also. I am assumming (we both know what assumming means) eliminator puts the water pickup's in the same place on UT's boat as other ones they build. I know you have had all kinds of test equipment hooked up to the boat when you had it out for testing. I only have a single drive but in my boat I can not really change the trim of the boat as I use to do in my baja. My question is how was it evident the engine was getting little to no water? You have me concerned I am missing something on mine.

Your listing of facts is very informative. I know you kits for big blocks include an intercooler. Do your kits for small blocks include an intercooler also?

I find it interesting that mercrusier does not install an oil cooler on the small block but on the lowest HP big block they do. Do you know a reason for that. I know after I installed blower on my BB I had to increase the size of the cooler to keep pressure up.

Joe, we offered you money back for the used SC's and that was our offer. We do not warranty motors and are certainly not going to buy a new one. We already went far and above the call of duty, we rebuilt one motor at our expense, spent countless hours testing the boat, all in rush, overnite delivery, after hours work, on the weekends, to get your boat done for your vacation. There's no problem with that, I always go out of my way to support customers, even potential customers.

We've stated what we feel has happenned. We have the confidence in what we do. We know for a fact that the motor was not running rich enough to get past the rings if the sensors are reading correctly, we have no reason too think otherwise.

turbojack,

Hey no problem. To answer your questions, UT's water pickups are thru-hull pickups in which they installed in the bottom of each sponson. Both had approx. .25" of a lip hanging beneath the boat. They also installed some fiberglass extensions in the side of the sponsons towards the transom for either extra clearance for the engine or direct water away from the drive which hung a bit out into the tunnel area. Your boat does not have these in the tunnels, this was something for the dual small blocks only. This was also the first dual motor 26' Daytona done and to my knowledge, the water pickups in the boat have always been custom, never standard unless it had the Mercury or Imco drives with the standard pickups.

The reason we knew it had no water was pretty simple, the water pressure gauge fell to 0 from where it was and the water temp increased significantly, an example off the top of my head was from 105-108 operating temp to 160-170 before either lifting or adjusting trim. It was most noticeable with little trim and seemed to not vary with speed, if the boat was trimmed up, it had more pressure and increased with speed, temp would stay constant. With all our systems, we stress water pressure, we even have a Mercury Racing bulletin that states the same, they want a minimum of 25lbs. and maximum of 35lbs. @ WOT on all of there engines no matter what. They also state that this is up to the boat builder since Mercury does not know what X dimensions, hull designs, etc. that are being used. What many miss is that we want more water than Mercury, this is one of the reasons for the removal of the thermostat, this increases water flow and typically the boat speed will give us the pressure, but in some cases, as UT's, more water is needed. We restricted the water outflow to increase pressure and decreased total spark advance to compensate for the lack of water flow. The restrictor is somewhat of a band-aid, it will work, but sacrifices power and/or reliability. We don't know whether it was the pick up location, pickup style, open bow boat, larger props, X dimension, etc., we don't know why the water flow would go away, we just knew it did.

Not that it matters, but I was also told after the first engine had problems that there was some water history problems, mainly just a few sea pumps which could be associated to other things.

As for intercoolers, our small block systems have a large cupronickel/copper intercooler, a blower that is turning very slow (same displacement as the 500 HP EFI SC), has all the fuel running through the inlet which causes a phase change as the gas goes from a liquid to a gas form and refrigirates the entire compressor and air charge (actual ice is formed on top of compressors), etc.

I'm amazed Mercury does not include the oil coolers with the small blocks as well, in fact, when we got our first engine here 2 years ago, I saw a "cooler", figured it was the oil cooler until my father said there was not one, of course I argued, there had to be one, after further investigation, there was not. I agree that it's amazing that the 454 310 MPI had one, yet the 6.2MPI 320HP does not. Not only that, the small blocks only have a 6qt. system which as you know, can get hot faster and PSI can suffer in harder running conditions.

Thanks,
Dustin

Dustin

Have you started test on the 496mag (375)?
If so, what types of upgrades do you foresee for this motor?
What's your time frame ?

Bill

Dustin,

Are you able to post any pictures of the 496 mods with the CMI headers?

Can the CMIs be directly swapped or are adapter brackets necessary?

Thanks

To all of you who have called, emailed and pm’d to show support – thank you! I apologize for not responding promptly, but I promise I will. Thursdays are our committee day so my time is tied up in meetings and today I need to leave early as I promised my daughter I would take her to the horse races (I think she likes horses more than boats – go figure:confused: ).

Anyways your support is very much appreciated and don’t be too worried about me. I know right now it looks like Goliath is beating the stuffing out of David, but remember, this is not life or death. As Tank would say, "its all good."

Hopefully by next week I can find that damn slingshot ;)

Toddw,

Here's a picture of the 496 with the SC, I'm finishing up the photos for the 525 and performance cal. We made a really nice cover and flame arrestor.

Thanks,
Dustin

OK...what the hell is a 6.2?
Does someone have a pic of this motor...never heard of it.

Thanks Dustin. Looking good.