Spent the last 4 weeks going through the port engine. Checked the cooling system which still had saltwater and brown mud inside. Took everything apart and cleaned it thoroughly. Strainers full of mud and in bad shape, must be replaced.

Corrosion on all headers, three had a hole (galvanic corrosion?) and water was pouring out. Had it welded and it seems to hold.

Made a test set up for the fuel system and fixed the flooding condition of both carbs.

Designed an engine test stand and had it welded at local shop. Turned out pretty overbuilt and heavy. Just how I like it.

Completed the engine with everything I had removed and refurbished, set up a somewhat wild cabling, added the battery, a fuel tank and a dashboard and finally after 11 months since I first saw my Cigarette I could run one engine.

Started right away at first try, stable idle no hesitation when accelerating, great sound! One header started spilling water, couldn’t see from where so I finished for today.
Happy to finally see some progress.


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Wow, you are running on shear desire and fortitude, nice job! Be very careful with your manifolds, if there were 3 holes I’m sure there are other places where their weak in that aluminum now. I would drain them after each run and psi test them semi frequently.

You are probably right, chances are that it could leak into the exhaust and ruin the engine. Especially as it will sit for a while as I pulled the other engine.

So starboard engine is out and waits to be opened.
Lots of work in the engine bay too. What a mess.



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Old fuel pump still there

Had to laugh at the old fuel pump. When I bought my top gun, it had two electric pumps & also mechanical pumps on the motors. One pump didn't work so instead of replacing it, the previous owner just made a bypass hose to take it out of the loop. Other pump had to be turned on to run that motor.

While waiting for some tools (a 3/8 12 pt socket is difficult to find in this metric country) I had time to look at my boat and found that the stern has moved up almost an inch after pulling the engines.
My first thought was that the hull changed shape but I remembered that the long wooden bunks at the keel were bend downwards before, now they are almost straight. So the hull was slightly curved already.
Question is how straight is the hull supposed to be?

The boat sat 20 years on the drydock on just two merely 2’ long bunks, that can’t be good.

Do I have a hook?


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Drydock with wooden bunks, probably an afterthought to gain some clearance
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I would think if the stern was lifted it’d be the opposite of a hook, being more rocker.. or are you asking if you’d have a hook w the engines in? But either way I’m not sure if how it currently sits on the trailer w/out motors in it is a good accurate measure of anything unless you had previously taken some sort of measures and references with the motors in?

Ya, must be a rocker, I mixed that up.
I never took any measurement from the ground to the bottom of the hull so I can’t say what has changed. I only know it sat nice and snug the whole length on the bunks and now it doesn’t. Either does it touch the rubber block in the center. It did before and it still does 8’ forward (there’s a second one).

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What I did when I had the trailer/cradle made, was to make a mock-up of the shape of the hull at the stern (blue) and 20’ forward (green). At that time the boat was still on the island and I needed something for the welder. Worked out well but obviously it doesn’t tell if the hull is straight or not.


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Took the starboard engine apart and as expected salt water had entered and seized cylinder #5

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My idea to just swap all parts to the spare short block was too optimistic, one cylinder head has corrosion damage. This sets me back a month or two.


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Salt water, its a love hate relationship

I would personally consider your time and effort analytically when deciding on the route your going to go with your repairs/rebuilds. For example one could weld and have heads skimmed to get you a component that will be possible to assemble but just like the exhaust you’ll possibly be flirting with disaster when the weak links start to appear...

You have a point here, saving some money now can ruin the engine later. I guess I have to take the chance, just replacing about everything is too expensive. I don’t have deep pockets and every dollar I put into the boat is basically lost as it’s almost impossible to sell a go-fast in this country.
And if I think what’s about to come, drives, cabling, dashboard, paint, upholstery, tanks, trailer. Plus the small things like senders, water hoses, bilge pumps, alternators, fuel pumps, my shopping list is becoming longer and longer.
So yes, hate to say it but I will have to cut some corners to get my boat into the water.

It’s a Crane #139731 - 226/234 @.50" with .587/.610, 112

not the biggest cam, but I don’t want to go for more anyway as I’m afraid of reversion.

The Edelbrock heads should be good for up to 600hp and with this cam and the exhaust manifold that’s probably what I’ve got.



called Vinny and he is indeed a very nice guy who answered all my questions patiently. Great customer service and I’m not even a real customer.
So it’s confirmed that the port engine and the spare block are indeed Shafiroff 582s. Bore is 4.600 and stroke 4.375, with a compression ratio of 10.5:1. Both are from 2015.

The seized starboard engine is something else, has a 4.500 bore and no Dart Big M block like the Shafiroffs.
I took it apart, managed to remove the free pistons and without the crankshaft I had access to the seized piston from both sides. With a lot of hammering, WD40 and engine oil I finally managed to get the it out.
Doesn’t even look so bad from inside, left side piston have signs of overheating which is no surprise after all the mud I found in the cooling system, left side was completely blocked by it.

I will rebuild this engine later, shouldn’t be too difficult for a machine shop to fix it.

But first I disassembled the 582 spare short block and took it to the machine shop. It spent 5 years on an island and surface rust on the surfaces left some pitting. The cylinder walls showed marks where the the pistons sat all those years without moving.
It needs some skimming and honing.

This will take a while. I’m also waiting for a big order on spare parts coming from the US.

So it’s time for a break and I will have a long overdue eye surgery. Hope I can get back to work in a month or so.

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2015 Shafiroff 582 spare block zero hours
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Couldn’t help to add some red paint. 3 main cap bolts were already missing when I bought the boat.


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Pistons in front and heads are from the seized starboard engine

Wow, bolts were missing. Never heard that one before

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Had some parts blasted and powder coated and they came out nice
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I also wonder why somebody would steal them, what for? As if there were other Dart big blocks around here.

Hi guys, just read your post about performance boats in Asia - we're based in Phuket Thailand and can help out with most things you need! Right now in our yard we have a Top Gun 38, a Nor Tech 4300 Mono hull and a Nor Tech 5000 Cat!

Anything you need just give us a shout matt (at) drake marine . com

Progress is painfully slow, Malaysia is going through a series of lockdown and each time I can´t go to my workshop for a month because it´s just across a state border.

I got my engine block back from the machine shop and I was not happy with the result. They scratched the surface where the oil pan sits, will see if I have leaking later. They didnt´t machine the deck enough to remove all imperfections and one cylinder wall even has a notable pitting, honing wasn´t that great either. I didn´t return it because I didn´t think they could do a better job.

Cylinder heads turned out ok, given the damage they had. However they had to skim a lot and I would need thicker head gaskets, at least 0.060 compressed thickness. Compression ratio is already 10.5 and I don´t want to go higher. Problem is, thicker gaskets are all MLS (Multi Layer Steel) which need a perfect surface. As I don´t have that I had to go with the good old composition type and the maximum I found was 0.051. Talked to a guy from Summit who was quite knowledgable and he explained that skimming off the cylinder head counts for less for its conical shape. So it should be just fine, hopefully.

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Not a good feeling to assemble the engine with the less than perfect block and heads but what can I do, the downside of living here. Replaced the main bearings and got the missing main cap bolts and after another month of lockdown I could start again.


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Timing chain has too much slack, ordered a new set


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before cleaning the valves


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checking rocker arm geometry

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Yet another lockdown, started ordering spare parts. Decided to replace the timing chain set, the alternator, all senders, bolts and all rubber gaskets of the Hardin parts and a couple of other things like breathers and hoses. And then wait...

Dang that's a bad machine shop
The pan gasket area can be fixed with even things like JB weld and sand flat, but the cylinder no way. Any more room to bore? Dish pistons to reduce compression maybe

Bore is already 4.600, not sure how much this can be overbored.
There seems to be a good machine shop in Thailand (neighboring country), but shipping the block back and forth is a major effort and right now impossible anyway, nobody can cross the border.
I find myself already looking for complete engines on Facebook. For now I’ll try my luck with the rebuild and when I blow the engine up I guess it’s easier just to order a new one in the States.

Unless I'm looking at the wrong info, then 502 had a 4.466 bore. If yours is 4.600 that's 0.134 oversize. The 540 is bored 4.500 for a 0.034 oversize

Dart Big M can go 4.600. I even thought max bore was 4.625 for some reason.

The Dart big m has more meat in the cylinder wall area, but Id think you're close to max, if not maxed on bore size, a call to Dart will have the answer

it’s a 582 Dart Big M which comes in 4.600 bore from factory

Just looked up their website:

Standard 4.250”, 4.500”, 4.560” or 4.600” bore sizes with siamesed extra thick cylinder walls to resist cracking and improve ring seal (minimum .300” thick with 4.625” bore).

Love the valave covers . Are Kieth Erchart ? RG.

Love the name "Big Hole"

I think I must have Big Hole Jr.

Awesome work boat will be amazing when completed!

I see KE on the base plate, lower right side

Spec sheet claims max recommended 4.625" bore. .300" cylinder wall thickness at that bore.

came with the old engine, so I’m not sure. But F-2 Speedy is right, KE is engraved on one side.

Hardin has them
https://www.hardin-marine.com/p-1251...chevrolet.aspx

Thanks SR24Dave. When I bought it, it didn’t really have a name and I needed one quickly for the transport. I guess you know the saying “A boat is a big hole in the water into which you throw money” I found that nailed it.

Great dedication, what you have accomplished so far is amazing with the obstacles you have to overcome. Keep up the great work, I look forward to seeing it complete and in the water. It looks like you have TRS drives with Borg Warner transmissions.

Two months lockdown later I got a police permit to cross state border and finally could see my boat again. Armed with a ton of new spare parts and tools I went to the workshop only to find that the neighboring factory had undergone a major renovation. They damaged parts of my roof and rainwater had entered into my air conditioned room where I sleep at night. Nobody around so instead of working on my engine I had to fix that and clean up the mess for the next two days.

To cheer myself up I started the port engine, just love the sound, reminds me why I´m doing this.
Before I headed home I made a video and posted it on YouTube:

Sounds real good

WOW!!!! What a great thread. Thank you for sharing. I cant wait to see it when its finished.

This is fantastic! Thanks for sharing and taking the time to post it all.

It's deceptive but it hardly looks like the you'd have enough clearance under those VC's to clear the rockers. Obviously you do but it's just deceptive looking..... Coming together, I bet you're getting excited