Glad to help out.

Yes you only live once and good or bad you can say "I DID IT".

I was inspired by Bobby Todd, Jason Smith and JaayTeee.

I'm not sure about LOTO yet.

Happy New Year

Get your ass to LOTO! It will be fun! We can stay tied up to each other when one of us breaks a drive.

Nice job and not to butt in. I could be wrong about your new motors but it looks as if in the pictures you are using that older style 1 piece plastic impeller housing if not great. Mercruiser changed it over to a brass housing that is so much more reliable. Over the years Mercusier OEM was a 2 piece plastic housing that was the 1st one out, then later went to a 1 piece plastic impeller housing which looks like what you have in the pics I see. I would upgrade to the newer style brass housing through OEM or get one of Teague's upgraded style and of course you know CP Performance they have them also. This housing is much more stronger and more reliable also the impeller itself is splined different than the one used for the plastic housing so you will need the newer style impeller also. The bridge inside that plastic impeller housing is weak so if it breaks before the impeller it knocks out the impeller and of course everyone on this board should know how inportant impellers are and their housings. Also it seems when a impeller lets go in the brass housing you can just about retrieve all the broken pieces of the impeller blades right there in the housing instead of the older style having broken blades hung up through out the cooling system. A lot less back flushing and trying to gather all the broken blades from the brass housings is what I have seen on the many units that we change out weekly compared to the plastic units. (FYI) If I am wrong about yours pics and what you are using then you got a handle on it. Also Wix oil filter good or switch over to a Amsoil EaO, Stay away from Fram. Good luck enjoy your almost new boat.

Thanks for the reply.

I bought the brass pumps but we had a fitment problem and the pulley did not match up to the bolt pattern on the pump. We were already over budget and with machining time and expense I elected to go back with the stock Merc pumps. I have yet to have an impeller failure now with three performance boats over 10 year and 1000 hours of operation so I feel confident with them.

Maybe someone that does custom boat work could come up with some retractabele scoops. I have no Idea how they would work but if you could get them to recess in the sunpad and then pop up when you were running it might be the best of both worlds.

While at first I thought this idea was a little out there I will say after some consideration is is not a bad idea. I can easily see a sun pad modified with removal scoops that could be pulled off easy and replaced with a matching sunpad insert for sun bathing and when you are docked up.

Who knows maybe that is the item of the decade you should get a patend on.

I say anything is possible. Im sure if Nortech wanted this option they would make it happen. Just look at their retractable hard tops!

There is already an option like that & it is a Baja option. Look at the headrests on the new stuff. They have big holes that go right over top of the intakes. 3 of them to be exact. Put some hinges on them *****es & some small screw jacks & viola, retractable hinges.

Congrats Doc! Awesome project. I have been so busy lately I forgot to check back in on this thread.

It going to be a long few months for you waiting to get back on the water.

& loud horns on everything