496 HOs in Cafe
 

Has anybody put 496s in there cafe.....I am thinking about putting them in my boat.....I really want something reliable and will go 3 or 4 seasons without freshening up......

I think someone has already put them in. I think the boat ran low 70's with this power.

How fast do you want the boat to go? Thats the question. I don't think its enough power for me. I would look at something over 600hp per side. I think the 496 ho is only 425hp. Just my .02

Sean had just repowered his Cafe with 496's/XR's and Gary (Cigarette1) had re-rigged his Cafe with 496's a few years back. If they don't see this thread, send a PM

Kurt

I remember Gary saying that his boat ran about 72 with the 496's in it.

no way was he running 72 with 425 hp....... i call bull sh it...:chimp: :chimp:

The boat ran about 67 with the stock 502s...The guy at Mercury said i would see about 75 or 76 with 525s and 67 or 68 with 496s.....These were just calculations though.....Need some real #s..

Talk to a guy at Slayer performance and he said i could see 80 for about 14,000 a motor...But then i would be turning wrenches.....My opinion...

Go with the 525's!!!!:D :D

Jeff,

Your guy is pretty close. I repowered mine at the end of last season with 496HOs and XR drives. The boat was a complete re-rig from TRS, and we raised the X-dimension per Phil Lipshutz's specs. I have about 4 hours on the setup and opened it up once. On GPS we are saw a legitmate 68MPH with a half a tank of fuel and 3 guys on board.

One thing we noted with the 26" Bravo I propellers, is that we were only turning about 4900...but the throttles were installed with a forward cant and were hitting the trim switches on the dash so we not getting WOT. We've turned them around and now get full WOT, but haven't put the baot back in the water to test.

I think we will only see another 1-2 mph out of this setup which puts us around 70mph.

My boat is an 87 which I believe is heavier than Gary's was, so 72 for his ride does not sound that far off...

BTW, I went the "turning wrenches" route and it was NOT fun. We had a set of supposed 600hp 540c.i. motors in the boat and they would not stay together...just bad luck with a set of tired motors that were supposed to be rebuilt... Long story short, we saw about 67mph with these motors and the TRS setup and did very little boating because the boat spent more time in the shop draining my wallet.

The 496s (or any stock setup for that matter) are truly the way to go if you want to go boating and don't have unlimited funds...

And from what I have seen thus far...to get a Cafe to see the 80's and more is gonna take ALOT of power...

Lastly, I've been following your thread on the update of your Cafe and "incredible" is probably the best way I can describe it... great work!

Gary and the new owner (Carlos) ran the boat in perfect conditions (cool temps in the ocean with just the right amount of chop to air the hull and maybe a little tail wind :chimp: ) and they achieved 72 on GPS. On a normal day it might be 69-70.

Thanks for the Info....Decisions...Decisions...I am ready to just have some fun!!!

For a few miles an hour, Turnkey is the way to go...instead of going 85 or 90 and running the risk of power that only gets you that number going one way, I would rather make a round trip at 65 or 70 :cool:
My SCARAB has a single 502 and I have seen 62 on GPS and most of the time it is right around 60, to go 75 in this boat would cost me more than the boat is worth...sometimes the big power is more trouble then its worth, but it is an amazing feeling to fast with big power, but you just gotta ask yourself if thats the boating you want :cool:

the way i look at it....go with the reliable 496s and run em wide open all day long....they are under warranty...lol...

i like stock power and going boating more often then being the fastest out there....but thats just my opinion....