Check Ya Later 2000 25 OL SST
 

After 6 months of looking, 2 marine surveys, and a failed water test in person I finally picked up a good one. Got it from Michigan a couple weeks ago, 502 mag 600 hours. Picked it up for $24k and man this thing is clean for a 20 yr old boat.
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$25k cash
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Ole reliable made the trip easy.

I believe I’ve saw that boat around here. Nice buy!

Nice Ride!!! Have you had a chance to run it?

Yes quite a bit luckily. Getting on plane is pretty slow going to try some different props, but other than that runs very good. Going to be changing all the fluids, filters, and water pump next week.

Sharp. Lot of nice boats in Michigan. Maintained, a 502 will run 1000 hrs. Great engine.

Well done, good job on holding out for the right boat!
More self control than I have!

So what’s it topping out at?

Right now about 56 on the dash gauge have not GPS it, and thats at 4600 rpm. I think I should be at least in the 60s wouldn't you think?

yea... should turn 5000RPM

Ya, that's why i'm thinking it's a prop issue. Manual says WOT is anywhere from 4600 - 5000. Current prop is a 23 p 3 blade Mirage Plus, kind of dinged up.

Congrats! Nice ride. We had a 24 OL and loved it. You should be seeing low 60's with that power for sure.

What Tank said, low 60’s

A lot better graphics than the 98 imo....I had a 33 OL with paint ball look very nice boats

I agree, these graphics and the 02 sst I think are my favorite. Lightning bolt/waves look.

What prop are you running?

I don’t remember since we sold it 16 years ago. But it was a 97 24’ OL stock bravo stock mercury prop and stock 454 before we put a worked 525SC. Boat ran low 60’s.

I’ve had a couple 24’ and with 454 mag or 502 mag 21 or 23 mirage plus worked well. With 620hp 509 a -2 imco lower and 26 bravo ran 80

I agree with the boat being able to run 60’s. We had an 25 OL 496ho, would go 61-62 all day 63-64 lightened up (Non-GPS). That was with a dah cupped mirage plus 23p.
Those boats like a little chop to get some air under the hull.

5# Procharger kit picked up 10mph 75mph was the best we saw with a 28p 4 blade mirage on that setup.



pre blower
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Post blower

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Congrats on the nice Baja! You’re going to love it. You should be probably mid 60s though. Mine with a 496HO was right at 70 with a good labbed 25 mirage plus. They love the trim button

I’m new to stern drive boat. When runnin WOT where do you want the drive trim at? I know not fully down, but 3/4 down? 1/2? Per the gauge.

Getting on plane I’m putting trim tabs all the way down, still having some trouble gettin up.

Your prop must be seriously wrong. You shouldn't need much if any tab to get on plane. Drive tucked in, tabs neutral, keep it under 3500 rpm, roll on easy and it should jump right up. Once it rolls over kick the drive out "a bit" and you'll feel the boat loosen up. Play with the drive setting and feel the boat. If it feels "wet" and nose heavy, kick the drive out a little more. If it starts to hop, you've gone too far. You get into rougher water and start airing it out, you sholdn't be nose up too much when you come out of the water. I really didn't use the tabs in our Baja much at all unless I was in some big water and needed to keep the bow down.

I pulled the 454 out and dropped a worked and chilled 525SC putting out about 650 hp and it was hitting about 80. Started getting a little sketchy. :eek:

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White knuckle ride!

Any updates on the new ride?

prop wise no. Local guy didn’t have any I could test. Gonna go through bblades rental program after I get some more info to give them.

I did change impeller and housing, all fluids and filters.

Was on water to get MPH and RPM to try different prop, and go figure mph gauge went out. Was still showing up to about 35 and wouldn’t go any more past that. So, I used a gps speedometer on phone and took video of that. Got about to 60 mph about 4600rpm. Any ideas where to check for mph gauge?

Clogged pitot tube or pick up

Update to some of the issues:
Boat started to die upon initial startup and couldn't hold RPMs steady. Swapped IAC and Temp Sensor w/ little to no change. PITA to get started and maintain idle, once it gear it does fine at idle, but now it really struggles to get on plane if at all. Boat now hits about 2500 rpm trying to get up w/ backfires every 5-10 seconds. Swapped cap, rotor, plugs, wires and new gas no change. Pulled out of water yesterday to dig deeper into the issue.

I did notice the drive trim limit insert 'celery stick' was on opposite sides, guess that could explain the initial struggle to get out of water from the beginning.

Turns out fuel pressure is low, high as I could get it was 23 psi. Calls for 42 psi. Couldn't find any leaks, getting a fuel pump and hopefully have it resolved by the weekend.

Swapped fuel pump, and adjusted timing. Running good now, still kinda slow out of the hole w/ two people and full tank. Gave it a good wax and changed the boat name decal.

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Boat got on plane really quick this weekend. One last problem, it seems to max out rpms at 4600 and 60 mph. Figured it'd have a little more left in it, but with the way it's running now I can't complain.

I’d think with a stock 502 boat should run 62-64 on gps. When you set the timing did you put the ecu in base timing mode? 23 Mirage plus should be a good all around prop, get it labbed and it will be a great prop probably 65-67 mph and much better turning without blowing it out.

I did set timing in base timing mode w/ the paperclip trick. Getting the prop labbed may be the next step, she's pretty dinged up currently.

I have a cleaned up 23 pitch mirage plus like new condition. My 496ho could spin it to the limiter(same boat) I’d be willing to sell.

How much? Location? Just stock prop?

$275 you pay shipping. Michigan. It was cleaned up, idk if actual labbed but I could easily hit rev limiter after getting it back. So I upped to a 25p

Let me get a quote from a local prop shop and see if they can hook me up.

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get with Brett at bblades and spend a little smart money on his test program. Start with a labbed 23 mirage plus your boat should spin this up to 5000+ If not look farther into the engine, if it does get some numbers together for Brett as a baseline and the next prop will be the one you buy.

Out last weekend boat ran great, got on plane really quick and everything was great. Noticed Volts were around 10, checked both batteries they were reading 11.9v. Let them charge for 2 days got them up to 12.6v. Went out this past weekend everything went perfect. Except for the end of the day. Beached the boat all day about 8 hours sitting on sandbar batteries off. Go to leave and the boat cranks kinda grabs to start then nothing. Tried a few more times all it would do is crank :( Was about to get towed back and decided to try one more time and it cranked for a few seconds and fired up. UGH. Not sure wth happened... going to dig in tomorrow. Boating is fun.