2nd Maiden Voyage
 

Over the winter I rebuilt my old 454's that were the original donor engines out of my Panther. Last summer mid summer I was running gallons of water through one of my engines. After a couple of poker and fun runs I pulled out that engine and discovered it had a cracked block. I quickly threw in one of my spare Merc 420's I had laying around so I could make the run that weekend and finish out the summer.

The maiden voyage on the fresh power was a success. Spent an hour on Lake Michigan Saturday running below 4000 RPM's and never getting into the 4 barrels. (the discipline was real) I also incorporated some 3D printed parts that I designed up.

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I also threw it up on stands with the fork truck and cleaned the unknown growth off of the bottom of the hull.

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Thanks Mike! It takes 4 times as long to clean, prep, paint and detail then build them. All new AN hoses and fitting, anodized plugs, oil sandwich thermostats... the list goes on.

Hopefully, Todd would be proud :( I do have his red carburetor throttle plates on the engines now. He could never get his custom built carbs to run right. So I thought I would use them, just because.

very nice...looks good!!

Those might be foreshadowing to the new paint scheme...

new paint scheme...?

Next year or so total facelift. Engines paint complete .

The orange looks great! How did you get the growth off the bottom? I have had good luck with removing the staining with Power 1 in the past.

Acid (toilet bowl cleaner) and Scotch Brite.

If you ever swap out those fuel pressure guages, let me know. I would take them off your hands.
I have MPI's now and my boat has the lower pressure/carb psi guages, but they have a lot of crazing on the lenses.

Post a pic of them, I might just swap you gauges. I won't be going EFI anytime soon.

Like I said, the lenses have a lot of crazing. https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...c519a131c9.jpg

Good enough for the girls I hang out with. I'll try to get them out after the weekend.

Not in any hurry. I'm headed to LOTO from 6/22-7/01 so prob won't have time to swap them before the trip.
I assume mine work fine, but they have not been hooked up since before 2000 when my mpi's were installed.

That works for me. Let me know when you would like to swap. I'll see if any of the senders I have laying around work with the gauges. I believe I have 2-60 psi senders.

Lookin real good !

Update
 

Getting it dialed in. Mismatched 26" Bravo 1's (round tip and sharp tipped) at 5600-5700 RPM, flat water on Lake Michigan. Need to step up to 28's and might have a line on them to try..Remember this is a non-stepped straight bottom with 454's. Yesterday was a good HP day.

Griff, I didn't forget about the gauge swap. Looks like it might be a winter project for us.

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I remember when that boat was being built at the Factory and going for it's first ride!

That's neat to hear. It's going to be getting a whole new makeover in the coming year or 2.

I'm actually getting a pair from Sick Stinger. You can still have mine. I have no use for them and they haven't been hooked up since about 1999, so I'm not sure if they work. If you've got some senders for the 60psi ones, that would be great.

Great! I'll head to the shop this week and try to dig up the senders.
​​​​​​​Thanks

No, keeping the boat together this winter. Building engines to put back in my Panther and get that ready to sell this spring, also fixing up my cruiser to sell and going to start on a couple of car projects that have been on hold for too many years.
Definitely need to meet up this summer. I'm out every weekend on one of my boats, usually go out of GH,

Griff, when you get the gauges installed. Let me know how the senders work. I'm going MPFI and will need to get senders for my EFI fuel gauges.
Thanks

Going to be more difficult than I thought to connect the senders. The schrader valve on the fuel rail is too close to the upper manifold for them to connect directly to the rail. I will have to find some sort of extension/adapter. I tried to test them but probably wasn't getting a good enough ground to get them to work.