She runs! Wish I had a tach hooked up because i think have to adjust idle a little bit, either tps or just the set screw on throttle blades. Ether way I'm happy to hear her pur. Going to try and get a video up..

Here we go
https://youtu.be/CPgQgdzGMSY

Fantastic! Congratulations!

Yes sir sounds great... congrats!

Thanks guys!

After talking with eddie at young performance marine I'm confident everything is good to go. I was a little concerned about how it was idling after I shut it down once or twice and restarted it but with the motor sitting slightly nose down, and water constantly cooling the intercooler even at idle with the two stage water pump, that'll cause the front two cylinders to run rich and not idle quite as smooth as we're used to hearing a 525efi. I also had probably too cool of a plug as well.

Picked up all the angle aluminum needed to make new motor mounts. Looks like Saturday is going to be the day to drop her in. I'm going to try an sandwich the engine mount between the stringer mounts similar to what wildcard did. I will also have to fill the holes from where the 496 stringer mounts bolted up, just three holes in each stringer and drill new holes through the stringers. The Mercury mount is farther forward than the Gil on the 496. Any advice on how to fill them? I was thinking wooden dowels and epoxy.

Wildcard's mounts
[ATTACH=CONFIG]566797[/ATTACH]

This is good filler

http://www.westsystem.com/ss/new-six10-epoxy-adhesive/

Got the four pieces of 4x4x.5" aluminum angles cut down to 4x2x.5 to fit the wider Mercury mount. Had to do it with a jigsaw, not a ton of fun. Drilled old stringer mount holes to 7/16, chamfered the ends, then filled the holes with a 7/16 diameter dowel and epoxy on the ends. Cut the dowels so there was about .25" to fill with epoxy on each end. Slop the epoxy in the hole then place masking tape over the holes to hold the epoxy in place while it cures.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]566870[/ATTACH]

Brought back memories of chamfering all the screw holes in the transom and everywhere else the factory thought a wire or house needed to be secured and filling with epoxy from last season
[ATTACH=CONFIG]566871[/ATTACH]
Fun times...

Silicones simrad transducer mount in place as that would be hard to do directly under the engine even with it raise 3". Motor goes in tomorrow, I hope.

She's in. Long ass day. Alignment with an extension box can be a *****. Remember to check alignment and then spin the motor 180 degrees and check again, have someone sliding alignment tool in and out as you crank motor over with ratchet. Makes for a long day, but the beers taste better when you know it's done right.

Still need to add the angles that will sit on top of the stringers

[ATTACH=CONFIG]566882[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]566883[/ATTACH]

Making progress with rigging and getting the motor back together. Cleaned up all the wiring on the motor to how I like it, which is always easier said than done. Mounted the sea pump which would not fit without modifying a stringer mount with the water inlet that was on it. Bummer because that inlet would divide water between the two stages evenly but on the other hand it would've been harder to plumb cleanly.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]567083[/ATTACH]

So I think I'll have to use a rear inlet. My only concern with that was the water getting to the intercooler stage first before the motor cooling stage, the intercooler would have access to all the water needed while the engine would get what's left over. But that issue was easily dodged by swapping the outlets on the stages around so that the motor stage is first then the intercooler.

Intercooler stage first
[ATTACH=CONFIG]567084[/ATTACH]

Swapped - motor stage first
[ATTACH=CONFIG]567085[/ATTACH]

It's the smaller parts of a project like this that can make or break it when it's coming down to the wire, wanted to have it complete mid may... The boat is going by CMI on the 15th/16th to get tail pipes made. So if I can have just about everything done by then that would be awesome.

I honestly don't know how pictures get spun left and right...

Finished the mounts today. Another pita. Right angle drill barely fit in there.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]567101[/ATTACH]

Put the starboard side header on and discovered another issue. The header is too close to the sea pump to fit the inlet I almost ordered today, but forgot. Something told me to mount just this header because I'd find something out
[ATTACH=CONFIG]567102[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]567103[/ATTACH]

So between the header and the offshore mount the plumbing might get interesting