screammachine

You mean to tell me Merc dose not put together the ones that are not blue ? Where on earth do they come from?

Gordo

Noooo, say it ain't so!

SS930

Nope, fresh from GM.

Knot 4 Me

Black Merc motors are GM crate engines marinized by Merc. Same with Volvo.

Driveguy

GM brings them over one at a time in the back of a colorado on a test drive

Harvey

I know Joey builds some great engines. I was there last week and he has four 1500 hp, two 1350 hp, four 1075 hp, and about twenty other merc 600/700 hp engines waiting to be built. I hear a lot of talk here about his engines. You need to hear both sides of a engine rebuild story before you make a judgment call. I know serveral people on here that have had engine problems, Joey told me he has never ordered an Eagle crank or rods to install in a engine. He has never built an engine for Schogen post # 7. You bring two engines to a engine builder to have rebuilt, they bore it out, replace pistons, rings, bearings, they use your same internals unless there is a problem. If you had a bad rod are you going to tell him to replace all sixteen rods to have a matching set in both engines or to replace the bad rod in the one engine? Think about it. What difference does it make if you have different rods, as long as they are equal or better. A lot of people start to poor mouth as soon as they hear they will have to pay extra because the builder has found problems in their engine. Now this is no longer just a rebuild with bearings, rings, pistons. Some will say don't you have something laying around you can replace it with, I can't afford a new crank or what ever. Let's say you have twenty hours on a rebuilt engine and you have a ticking in the engine, you bring it back and it has a bad lifter, did you tell the engine builder to replace all the lifters? If you did, and he replaced the lifters, the warranty will be with the lifter manufacture not with the builder. Most engines rebuilds use the same push rods, lifters, valve springs. This is the case on most hp 500 thru 700 engines. When you get into the merc 850, 1075, mercury recommends 40 to fifty hours before overhaul. They get $ 30,000 to rebuild, but they replace everything. The people on here that have had engine problems should explain what the terms of their overhaul was. What was expected to be replaced at rebuild,and what failed? Did the engine builder offer some free labor? Did you expect him to rebuild the engine free because your used lifter broke, or a new lifter from Crane broke. After forty or fifty hours you get water in your engine and the builder tears it down and the head gasket is rotted out, is that the engine builders fault? Maybe the engine wasn't flushed after each use. There are many variables that should be considered before we bad mouth some one. Let's hear all the facts from both sides before we form an opinion. Sorry the post is so long.

BillR

I have receipts stating certain brand / part # was installed - it wasn't.
Have you talked to Jon B? How about me or Andy D? Too many of us here in the local area got burnt. YOU know how I care for a boat, and I dont run hard either.
I got heads that were not from my engine. They were old, rotted out heads which caused hydrolock at Chippoakes. Btw, I have pictures of MY heads at Griffins, they were like new. The set that failed were extremely rotted out. The other motor had MY heads and they looked like new. Same boat, same maintenance, same owner one set like new - one set completely rotted out -that just doesn't happen.

GETTINBYE

About 7 or 8 years ago I went on a "road trip" with a friend that was delivering a Top Gun to Ocean City MD. On the way back we were to stop by Joey's shop and pick up 2 rebuilt supercharged engines. I don't remember exactly what horsepower they were claimed to be but once I saw them with the twin Weber/Cater carbs on top I became very skeptical ot the claim. When we arrived there we could not find anyone. Walked through 2 or 3 of his buildings not seeing anybody. Left and went and did a tour of the Fountain factory. Hey I was that close why not?

When we did return to Joey's and found him he wrapped one engine in plastic wrap for the long trip. On the second he ran out of wrap about half way complete and said "that would be good enough to get you far enough down the road you won't come back". When he load the second engine into the back of my friends F350 Dully he continued to push it in on the pallet even after being told to stop. He looked at where the second engine pushed the first engine into the front of the bed of the truck bending the bed front to the cab and asked "was that like this before". My friend told him no it was not. Joey got on the forklift drove into his shop, closed the door and never came out while we were still there tying the engines down. My friend took it a whole lot better than I would or I may still be in NC.

Take this for what it is worth -- true story. I would not let Joey Griffin work on any thing of mine.

This does not even take into account the condition (at least on that day) of the engine building. It was not particulary clean and had numerous engines in pieces on pallet side by side with parts overflowing from pallet to pallet. Not sure how they kept up with what parts went where!

Mark

SDFever

Hi Jeff,

The black motors come straight from GM Powertrain. But no one in your league would really have any reason what so ever to know that.

I'd be curious to know how many people on this forum run and drive a boat like you do? I know I could never do it but I'd love the opportunity!

I'll just take a stab at it and say maybe 4 or 5... Out of how many of us??

Maybe my number is low but just sayin'. I think you've broken more engine mounts and stringers completely out of boats than most guys have ever owned in their lives.

Did you get that bottom done on the 38 yet?

Get to work!!

575cat

for Harvey, the boat was built new in 2000 with tripple 750 Griffen engines for fountain ,I guess he built he built some engines form them at the time , in late 2008 removed one engine , rerigged to a staggard twin by schogren thats when I baught it , so any way mismatched flywheels, poor machineing,rods had been touching the bottoms of cylinders, the internals were not at all what he verbally told me what was in them ! just sayin .