adding a super/turbo charger to hp500
 

i have a 1994 fountain fever 29 with twin mercury high performance hp 500 carburetor (the blue ones) i am looking into boosting them to obtain more power and i wanted to know if anyone had done it before, if it is hard and about how much it would cost to gain more horsepower. If i am wrong about how to boost these engines i am open to any suggestions from anyone.

Whipple makes a kit, and so does pro charger. Rough cost 5-7k per motor

ya i saw those and im considering them but is there anything a little less expensive?

put on some better heads , or get yours ported and maybe get a better cam and you will get 600 hp per side

Not much. You know what they say. Powerful, reliable, cheap. Pick two.

Also. remember to upgrade the fuel system and cooling system ect.
Not to put a stick in the wheel, but take a look at this thread about a 525EFI/whipple upgrade. There is no such thing as plug and play bolt on power, imo.
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/f...owerboats.html

If it was me, I'd get in touch with someone like Eddie Young, Bob Madara (RMBuilder) ect. Thay will happily tell you ecxactly what is involved in making a pair of blown 500HP's live, depending on your current setup.

Just my 2c's

Good luck with the project.

ive got 2 complete wipple side mounts with low hours for sale if interested pm me

same setup as yours with weiand 177's on top and some better exhaust they run like a raped date mid range is very impressive the boat will almost accelerate as fast as i can push the sticks foward

What's your time frame. I'll have two fresh 525sc's soon. Sell your hp500's and drop in my 525's :evilb:

Plan on spending another 28-30k on SCX drives the torque of SC500's will destroy bravo drives.

I run a carbed HP500 with a procharger, key is redoing fuel and oil systems as well as a prosystems carb...works awsome...

Supercharging HP500's is a "known quantity". Lots of good build formulas out there. With the way you asked the question, though, I think you need to hook up with a good marine builder as suggested. They can provide a reliable turnkey package that you can trust.

If you were a wrench jockey yourself, there are plenty of ways to save a buck and get results, but if you aren't good at understanding tuning parameters and such, then you need to stick with the packages that have been sorted out and debugged.

As has been mentioned, your outdrives will be the weak link regardless of who builds the motors. Upgraded outdrives are also in the same ballpark as motor building. You can install some drive upgrades on a budget and hope you set them up right, or you can buy beefy aftermarket drives and be well assured.

You've entered a world of "disappearing value" in hopping up a boat. You pour money in, but if you haven't spent it in the right places, you break parts and lose your investment value.

For a guy who isn't a tuner himself, it's better to spend towards the "reliable and strong" side of the equation and slowly add performance.

The other way (adding performance without the correct foundation) yields impressive short-term performance improvements followed by expensive repairs. This is not the way to "build a performance platform" that will provide fun and happiness.

MC

According to Fred, you shouldn't mess with them, because they are perfect as-is! LOL

http://www.mercuryracing.com/blog/%e...step-right-up/

If those are the original blue motors with more than 250 hrs on them. I would rebuild the top end and upgrade the exhaust before anything else. Do a search on HP 500s. If you choose that route you might as well refresh the bottom end, upgrade cam, upgrade heads, ignition and exhaust. That route will provide you 600-650 hp per side and you'll practically have new motors for roughly the same cost as adding superchargers. After that run the s**t out the bravos until they blow up. When they do upgrade to xr's or aftermarket drives.

Wow that speed bug gets expensive. Here's a much cheaper way to get the same feeling. Smoke a fatty before each run, that way 60mph feels like 120mph. :lolhit:

I love this part. LMFAO:D

"And IF a modified engine survives, its torque output would be well beyond the capacity of any Bravo drive. BOOM! Instant, unhappy boater. More “Gee, I was just driving my boat at cruise and the damned Bravo…” (It seems the drive always gets the blame even when the engine is modified beyond drive capacity.) This makes me crazy. We develop engine and drive-lines as a system – matched to live together – and warranted because they do."

If the B1XR actually was up to, well, even the power of the 525EFI and 600SCI, he could be taken seriously.

I think if mercury really gave a crap about anything other than making money on parts sales they would design a drive somewhere between an XR & a#6 because it sounds like a lot of people are advising away from merc when someone wants to upgrade engine power. Now for the joke, A guy wrote in to Hot Rod mag, said he wanted to impress his friends on how fas his car was but did'nt have a lot of money. HR response bend the speedo needle just dont let em see the speedo at 50mph when the car is stopped.

that's why marine speedos do not rest at zero when docked !!:evilb:

I saw Mild Thunder had 2 bm 250 complete blower setups for sale in the swap section recently for 4.5k. You might see if those are still available. I put 525sc takeoffs (177s) on my 454s a couple years back and love the power and perf they added. It has not gone without breaking parts though as some have mentioned. But I love wrenching so it working for me. Your boat would be sick fast with those 250s on hp500s.

heres mild thunders ad. Best deal you will find...
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...-complete.html

[QUOTE=Randy Nielsen;3560196]I think if mercury really gave a crap about anything other than making money on parts sales they would design a drive somewhere between an XR & a#6 because it sounds like a lot of people are advising away from merc when someone wants to upgrade engine power. /QUOTE]

Isn't it called an NXT-1? Allows the engine to be mounted in Bravo position, upgradable to NXT-SSM Lower. Granted there are cheaper ways to go about getting a 800-900 hp capable drive.

Well yes, but the price of the normal NXT1 is not low, and the NXT/SSM drive is really expensive. The Indy retails for about 30k and I doubt the price of the NXT/SSM is anywhere near that. Also, the B1 to NXT swap is not an easy plug and play thing, you'll need a complete rerigging.
Oh and you will also have to deal with the crappy merc service as well:eek: All in all, it's the Arneson ASD#7M or Indy if upgrading Bravo drives.

The NXT is the setup that runs a trans inside a standoff box isnt it? That would be another mercury product to fail only a lot more work to get to to fix merc prices everything they sell should be made of solid gold. After standing about 5ft from Fred K @ desert storm explaining to another gentleman that people that hop their boats up using anything other than merc stuff are stupid & deserve what they get when a drive blows up I held my tongue but wanted to tell him in front of the other guy that if they stood behind their products like they do their price tags maybe people would do that, & also some of the certified merc techs whose work I have seen & had to fix I wouldnt let work on my lawnmower let alone a 100K or more boat. The guy struck me as an arrogant azzhole & to think before hearing that conversation I was thinking seriously about buying a pair of 525s & letting them install them at one of the shops in town,take a longer vacation while I was there. Out the window went that thought . After I finish my house project I will be talking to Raylar , Maybe look into this Arneson bit at least I havent seen any threads on here about their stuff blowing up!