thermostat housing and exhaust?
 

Hi, im new here have been lurkin for a bit. Lovin the old school stuff!

Any hoo, I have a vortec 350 with an indmar intake. the indmar intakes mounting location for the t-stat housing is farther forward than the factory location. that puts my housing right in the middle of my belts.

I looked at indmar t-stat housings and they make a shorter one but it is sans two of the outlets to the exhaust manifolds. the one I have now routes water to the bottom of the exhaust manifold and to the elbow (stock exhaust manifolds).

What I need to know is can I just plug the inlet on the exhaust elbow? if so i think I read somewhere I may need to put a different gasket in at the elbow??

its goin in a formuls 242 so It is through hull not sure if that matters.

I thought you guys may know better since there is plenty of different exhaust setups goin on in here!

You should be able to just plug the inlets on the risers and route to the bottom of the manifolds. The later Merc stuff is done this way. You may want to pull a riser and verify that the riser gasket does not have the passages blocked off, but I doubt if they are. Not a bad idea to periodically replace riser gaskets and inspect this joint occasionally, because a water leak here will ruin your engine.

Alternately, you could make up a hose union with 1-inch copper fittings at your local plumbing supply store. I would not recommend doing this in salt water, however.

Fantastic! thank you so much. I figured it was simple but I dont want to fool where i dont know what im doin. now on with the work:drink: