I do love Fountains and will love to see what yours will do...but after talking with Dave about some of his winter upgrades and knowing what his boat did last year..We may have another name other than Fountain in the winner circle...Can I still come??:D

I saw Axa as well, this past weekend in Syracuse. Seems he's busy lately, on top of being a new grandfather, he's into the new engine build for the "Fountain Killer" Formula, repower on the Caddy, and the 525 EFI freshen-up for the D & D Race Team boat. Also been trying to locate some missing Russian "Guys" of somewhat questionable character in Florida.


The thread does seem a little dead lately, I'm thinking it's undergone a gender change. Lost a "B" and morphed into the "TIBNC" thread, ahh for the good old days. :(

Yes you can still come!!! Last I heard blowers were not part of the program and short of that there is only so much you can do. Seem to recall someone was looking for those "lost" legnths. Might not want to switch camps just yet.

Hmmm, I don't seem to remember that part of the conversation?

I like having Sonic at my camp! He can come over anytime!

This was sitting on my kitchen table not too long ago. Still not sure of the color. Black or Blue? Anyone?

Dave

I'd say blue, but I would flip it right side up when you bolt it on the engine. You could get a real bang for your buck with a pair of them. Speaking of "them", where is the other one?

Ahhh...at the machine shop.....on the first motor...on the dyno...Making boost!!

That's all for now!

Dave

PS. Gonna stay with the black. Looks good with the new taller valve covers and gives it a stealthy look.

Taller valve covers? What do they do, catch the valvetrain parts better :D And by the way dude, that don't look like your kitchen table....................

I heard these might be available......

Stealthy is good :cool:. I just hope you turned it right side up before you bolted it on. So where are the pics and dyno sheets???
I would expect to see HP numbers in the high 700 or low 800 range with all the new tricks. Or, perhaps we are being fed a slice of cow pie.

I believe the entire package is available, was contacted a while ago by the current owner about the possible purchase when I was shopping.

5P,
Tall valve covers are often used when you go to a stud girdle set up to try to keep the real agressive valve train in place. They also allow more space for the flying parts to dissapate energy while comming apart. Thus keeping the chit in the engine and not doing secondary damage to the boat itself.

I've never see the Axa's kitchen table, you probably have, but my guess is that the aforementioned "Cow Pie" is sitting there just out of the camera shot. I'd like ice cream with my next slice :D.

The kits came with pictures to make sure they are installed correctly. Still dialing in #1 motor. The dominators are a little touchy, but we are close.

I'm not sure if I want to play my whole hand right now on line. There is a reputation at stake you know.....You may have to wait till spring and see them for yourself. :D

Dave

Now that we are talking about valvetrain...I just love to hear people talk about springs...it can make some people so upset..
..
Do you two hi speed boaters have the same opinion when it comes to best spring to run in my efi500s or do we have a diagrement when it comes to that???:party-smiley-004:

Ragged will chime in with an endurance spring by Isky. He has the part number...Or I would go with a Comp Cams 929 spring for your 500's.

Dave

Ragged I love it....man you stir up the chit everywhere you go.

When you retire and get a Searay are you gonna beatin up the Regal guys.

I'm comming up this summer to meet all you guys in person. I'd hate to hear all this with a couple a beers in ya.

Piece to all

Hey Steve, what the he!! you doing here? You and Wild Bill should come up this summer, maybe try to hit one of the poker run weekends. We could let Bill take a run at one of these hot rod Formulas. ;)

The Regal guys are safe for a few more years, I'm not ready to give up all this fun just yet.

Thats good, I was worried when you had it upside down on your kitchen table. Like they say "A picture is worth a thousand words".

Dominators aren't so tough, I did mine by the seat of my pants and a couple look-sees at the plugs, must have been spot on cause I ran the snot out of them and never had a single engine issue with those 525 SC's for seven seasons. Should be a piece of cake for you with all the puter generated dyno info. You get them done in black to keep with the stealthy theme program?

I put my faith in the Isky's, from what I've seen and heard they are a better quality spring, my engine "Guy" agreed. Once my 500's were rebuilt I never had any issues with the valve train, or anything else for that matter. Also changed the Crane Gold rockers out in favor of the Crower Stainless full rollers, again based on his (my engine "Guy") experience over many years with seeing failures in race motors of the Crane pieces, and never any with the Crowers. I believe Axa told me he is using Isky springs this time around, he could answer that for you, believe he talked to Bob Teague and was told the Isky's are the ticket. In any case I would be glad to look up the part number if you would like it.

How many hours do you have on your 500 EFI's now? If you are around 200+/- you should be considering changing the original springs. My opinion, for what it's worth.

Pushing 230..Maybe I will be pushing my luck but thinking about taking care of it at the end of next season..Not the type of guy that runs flat out allot..So we will see..After reading about head gakets issues thinking we better pull the heads.What input do you have on the gaskets??

Bob

All I can tell you is that changing the springs is a much simpler and less costly deal than dealing with a dropped valve. When mine went I was lucky enough to pick up on a slight tick in the one engine and idled it back to the marina. My thought was that I had a broken inner spring, it was idling and 50' away from the dock when the valve dropped. It just touched the piston once, then the second time bent the valve, locked up and died, at 600 rpm it did very little damage, I was lucky. A friend of mine up here had the same thing happen, only at 5000+, put a big hole in the piston, beat the chit out of the cylinder wall, wipped out the cam, twisted a lifter around and broke the lifter bore out of the block.

What it basically comes down to is that in these engines the factory springs have a limited life, it does vary based on how you run the boat, but at some point they are spent. Problem is you never know just when one is going to chit out on you, and even at a 3500 rpm cruise you can have a mess. I'm not sure on the head gasket deal, mine were fine, I have seen the comments on here about that. At 230 hrs I would be changing the valve springs, again, just my opinion, for what it's worth. Springs are cheap, pistons, blocks and other items are not.

Bob,

Keep running yours so I can get a good number for the 500 EFI, I'm at 112 now, the two real Merc mechanics I know say 250 on the EFI, 200 on the carbed motors.

tbd post, I got a guy...................

You go first!!!!!......OK.....If you do not want to go first...... I am going to take it to 249 and then wait for you...:D

Anyone need one of these? 2005 Yamaha FZ6, $5500

3700 miles, mint

So at 230 hrs the prudent money is not on changing the springs, I'm not Merc certified but I did pay for my education. All I'm trying to do is pass it on so that someone else might benefit from what I learned the hard way.

Rock Star Sighting
 

Was in the Bay today at HBW doing a little boat show follow up and in walks Doug aka Rock Star. Was good to see and talk to him, he's looking foreward to warm weather and summertime as much as we are. :D

Yea...He sent me a little reminder of COLDER days!!

Dave

one sturdy lookin' finger dock there...

even with good ice there not getting fixed?

if your basing hard and fast paid for educated opinion on valve springs based upon carbed 500's...

remember the EFI's had a better spring in them to begin with than the carbed predecessor/sibling

given the current state of real estate, was doug trying to move onto his 38?

BTW, that Powell finger looks like a prime candidate for a boat lift.....................:boat:

I wished he had taken a picture of the rest of the finger....It has two or three new square posts that were set in the fall. I think that picture shows why!!

Dave

How old is the HBW Boathouse? I can almost imagine Ragged as a kid with his 12' john boat with the fastest merc 9.9 in the bay.......and Axa with his 9.9 in about 300 pieces gettin' ready for the dyno.....

Yes they did change them in the EFI version.Carb 500's had a Crane spring, was changed to a Comp Cams spring in the 500 EFI's. The Comp spring might be marginally better, that would be a matter of opinion. Along with my own personal experience and costly misfortune, my "opinion" is based on a conversation with a Merc Racing dealer support tech, thanks to HBW, who told me that even with the change made in the spring manufacturer in the 500 EFI engines they still strongly recomend you perform the service to the upper end of the engine as per their dealer service buletin. When I rebulit my 500's I decided to step the spring quality up another notch or two and used the Isky springs.

Axa did not comment on the above post, but I do believe his current engine build does include the use of Isky valve springs in lieu of the Comp springs. I believe that was recomended to him by Bob Teague, and was told the Isky springs were what they, TCM, chose to use in all their engine builds. For whatever that might be worth. The spring he is using are not the exact spring that I used, they are slightly different due to the fact that his cams are several steps above the stock 500 cams that I kept in my engines. In looking thru the TCM specs on their engine offerings, they do in fact list Isky as the spring used in all of their custom engines.

Not sure when the boathouse went up, maybe the late 50's early 60's. At that time I was tearing up the other end of the River. No john boat for me, a 12' Alumacraft of some sort with a small all white Merc 7.5, I've always been a V bottom guy. :D The fastest john boat guy in the Bay would have been old Gordy O'Brien, O'Briens Boats up on the corner, he would rig up one in the fall as his duck hunting boat with a Merc 200 Black Max.

Went back and checked to be sure, I was thinking that this started with Bob asking for an "opinion" from a couple of us.

Blown motors
 

Hey guys,

With all of this talk about motors and springs etc. I have an interesting last 4 days ..... I was riding my sled up north (Tug Hill / Lake Clear area) and all of a sudden .... BANG !@#$ POW *&^% goes my motor on my sled. With what was suppose to be a nice saddle bag trip turned into a 8 hr pain the azz. Blowing my 3rd freak'in motor on this '06 Ski-Doo 800X Renegade with 4200 miles on it ..... I'm done.
So after getting towed back to Old forge Where we started. I had a couple of hours(8 hours and alot of beers) to think about my next move. So icame up with a solution .... called a brand new in the box 2008 40th aniversary edition Yamaha Apex LTX (long track) GT. $13000 later I was back riding the rest of the weekend. What is sick about these new 4stroke motors is you can buy turbos for these that produce 300+ hp on something that is 10 ft long ..... Giddy up .....
So much for my motor up grade this summer.

Jeff

Going thru the archives this morning, and found some memories!!

Thought I'd share.

Dave

5PM's Checkmate

The Dave and Dave Show

And the Famous and never forgettable Deck Dance!

Twins,


I've always thought Ski Doo and Sea Doo made junk. Two weeks though you'll wish you took advantage of post 144.......:D

Last I knew the CheckMate had a whipple on the 330 454 and was providing shuttle service for some native american commodities. :cool-smiley-027: