Repowering My 292
 

A couple years ago my father in law built some procharged 427 small blocks for a customer of his who installed them in a 98 sea ray bowrider of all things! He also purchased some imco extreme advantage drives and imco external steering. The motors have some pretty serious hardware. Dart blocks aluminum heads j&e pistons just to name a few goodies.
This gentleman has managed to scare the hell out of his family to the point where they won't even go in the boat with him. With everything he's in the whole package about 60k.
So I bought the boat! I'm going to start swapping motors and drives here in the next couple of weeks. I've been working on this deal for about 5 months now. I can't wait! I have pictures of the motors and the boat but I took them with my blackberry and can't seem to upload them from my black berry desktop manager. I'll either figure it out or take some pictures with my regular camera. I'm thinking this will probably void the warranty on my motors and drives????
-Nick

Use your Blackberry to email them to yourself and then save the pics and upload them.

Sweet!! Pictures would be great. I am really interested in this project. Are the engines fuel injected? What boost and HP? I can't wait to hear how the 292 hull responds to some serious horsepower. Thanks for any details and good luck!!:cool-smiley-011:

This should be an interesting swap, good luck, keep us posted.

The motors are fuel injected. In fact it's the kind you can adjust with a laptop. Pretty cool stuff once you get the hang of it. I'll get some pictures to you asap.
-Nick

Here's a pic of my boat

It's kind of funny this guy knew he was doing something that made no sense a couple years ago. He asked me if I'd like to buy the motors for 40k. I had just bought my Formula at that time. I now own the boat, the drives, and the motors for 45k! I plan to sell the sea barge for 45k when I'm done with the project. Hard to turn that deal down. Here's some pics of the barge.-Nick

A few more of the motors. -Nick

Looks like one hell of a deal, I can't beleive all that hardware was wasted on a Sea Ray bowrider.It's going to be interesting to see how your 292 flies after this install!!

Getting close to the shake down run?
 

Nick, reading another thread on props it sounds like you will be ready to run in a couple weeks. I assume these puppies are already installed?:D As for what prop pitch to start with... What gear ratio and horsepower are we looking at?

Wow...I am so envious, wish I had the dough to make my 292 the monster yours will soon be...

:ernaehrung004:

Ya I feel pretty lucky about the whole situation. There's no way I could have or would have forked out the kind of dough that's gone into these motors. We're talking top notch everything. We just dropped the motors in a few days ago. Now we're in the process of redoing the fuel lines, plumbing the cooling system. All that stuff. The imco drives are on and ready to rock and roll. I'm hoping to test the boat over new years at Lk Mead. We'll see! We're hoping for low 90's.

-Nick

We stripped the paint on the motors and painted them mercury racing blue. I also took the exhaust manifolds, superchargers, the lowers on the drive and the intercooler boxes and had them all polished. They look great!
I will find out what the drive ratios are. The engines should be pumping out around 600 hp and should top out around 6000 rpms. We're thinking the 28's will work but we're bringing 26's and 30's to see.

One thing we all need to remember when Nick posts the results is the high elevation,power robbing conditions he is running in. When we shipped him the boat we dropped 2"in prop pitch from stock.So any performance fiqures he posts we have to understand the conditions he operates in. Wish Nick could bring that 292 to our Alabama water:drink:

Thanks for the update. Anxious to hear how it performs with that kind of power. Be careful and best of luck!:drink:

Robert,
I'll be testing @ Lake Mead which is only 1000 feet above elavation. The local lakes are great for snowmobiling and ice fishing, not so good for boating!

Hey Robert,

Will this void my powertrain warranty????

Here's a shot of the imco drives installed on my boat. We had the lowers polished which looks great. The drives are a
1.5 ratio and the motors tap out @ 6000 rpm's so we're thinking 28's to 30's should do the trick

Here are some shots of the motors. Painted Mercury racing blue. Looking good in that 292!

I'm going to install some exhaust gas temp gauges. We bought some bezzels that slant towards the driver. Luckilly the colours match perfectly. The only complaint is the new gauges say livorsi and the current say gafrig.

The bottom pic is the imco exhaust manifolds. They came from imco black. We removed the paint and polished them. They look ten times better!
We're hoping to be on the water testing this coming Sunday. I'll keep you posted. C'mon 90!

Nick, everything looks great. Good luck testing. Be careful, and HANG ON !!!

Looks awesome! You have to be pumped. I took the liberty of running some speed calculations based on those props. If those engines can approach 6000 rpm, and at a conservative 15% slip, those speeds are impressive!!:evilb: Please keep us posted!

Hey Nick, did you run that bad mofo yet ???:boat:

Nick, are those IMCO drives standard length or a little shorter? BTW, good idea to run those Pyrometers!

Man I have a lot to live up to according to those numbers! Man. Hold on!!!!

I believe the drives are standard and I don't know what plyometers are. Please educate.

Never mind. You're talking about the exhaust gas temp gauges. You can tell I'm very mechanicly inclined!!!!

I hope you have also installed hydraulic steering.This boat may be a handful at anything over 85

Nickm are you keeping your Powerflows? Propwash

Propwash,

Yes i am keeping my powerflows.

This project has taken forever due to having to fabricate some pieces for the oil filters and we switched to regular cooling from closed cooling. I think we've finally overcome the hurdles and I'm hoping we can test in the next couple of weeks. I'm chomping at the bit to see what she can do. I'll let you all know!

-Nick

Thanks for the update Nick. Take your time and make sure everything is right. No sense in rushing things at this point. You will likely have the fastest 292 in existance! At least I haven't heard of one with that kind of power...:cool-smiley-011:

I just found this thread today. While reading I was hoping that there was some results... I'm seriously excited to find out. Lookin' forward to hearing the results.:D

Welcome to the party, Art. :party-smiley-048:

hope all is going well, let us know the projected test date

pics

I've been watching this for some time as well... I'm looking forward to the results. Best of luck! - C

Hi guys,

Just to give you a bit of an update. We've had the snowiest January in ten years! I'm a big skier so I haven't been overly anxious to get out on the water.
My mechanic had a death in the family so this project hasn't been on top of the list of priorities.
He's almost done plumbing the fuel system then he just needs to bolt on the exhaust manifolds, superchargers ect. We will be testing for sure within the next month. I'll let you all know how it goes the day we do it.
Thanks for all the interest!!!

-Nick

Looking VERY stylish! It's amazing how much work you "find" in addition to the work you intended to do, isn't it?!

Done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are about done! Plugs, wires, serp belt and we are ready to rock and roll. We are going to test @ Lk Mead the first weekend of March. Hope she drives as good as she looks!