Modding it is fine. Making it faster is awesome. However you keep using the word equity. At this moment the market has dictated you have 0 equity in the boat. That's a lot of time and effort to put into a boat you don't "love". you could very well end up with some paperweights after yanking current power.

I don't think that hull was ever designed to run at those speeds. As such, you could end up with a handful of boat that is dangerous, and also, something no one else will want. I can't remember seeing one with anything bigger than 350HP/side. You can't just throw HP at any and every boat and expect it to respond & perform linearly.

If it were me, and I wasn't happy. I'd put it up for sale for $38K, and take anything over $30K. You would be the cheapest 29 listed on Boattrader.com by a long shot; and it would likely sell quickly and easily, especially to someone on a quiet lake. It's boating season, not wrenching season. Sell the boat and go buy something ready to rip.

So now here is a valid point and one I'm trying to explore. I'm going to reach out to some people in the industry and see if they've ever heard or have first-hand knowledge of this boat with a little bigger power. That is also why I posted here, hoping to find an answer to that question. I did read about somebody with a 383 repower I'm not sure what type of power it was making but I'm assuming around 400


Listen friends, I would really like more support here lol. If my girlfriend is on board you guys should be too ha. Take off the conservative hats, grab sombrero, and come have some coronas on my thousand horse 292. I mean I'm ok with being the Guinea pig. Did it with the arneson on the cat. This mild compared to that 👍. On that one everyone is like hell ya, 1200 horse single engine arneson? What could possibly go wrong there.

You posted a thread asking for input and advice. You're getting that it's just not what you wanted. You had your mind made up before posting. Your whole thread should have been "this is what I'm going to do" and it may have a different tune. Good luck with it.

Couple of things..

1. if you put that motor in a boat, you will soon have a pile of scrap metal. That is not an engine for a boat, thats an engine for a burger flipper to drop into his beat up camaro so he can be the king of bling and impress his friends doing burnouts in the high school parking lot.

2. You said you were interested in increasing the resale value, Than think that way. every thing you do to it needs to be geared towards that end if thats what your interested in. Not making it bulletproof or fast. Also any work needs to be done clean and correctly.

3. If your going to sell it, Black motors are your friend, next would be blue motors recently freshened by a reputable shop, not hopped up by Billy JimBobs speed shop. SAme for the drives, if you doing a bravo conversion, do a bravo conversion or XR not B-Maxs etc..... The potential buyers of your boat are looking for stock, unmolested turn key dependability.

4. THe few exceptions to stock turn key would be a solid factory type upgrade i.e: replacing bennets with k-planes, hydraulic steering.......

IMHO is your doing a bravo conversion and more motor for resale, do fresh bravo 1 gimbles and drives spun my either 454 mag mpis or 502 mpis. all stock,

You know I realize that, and I said what I did with a jovial tone in that last post. I guess I am committed to this more than I thought.

[QUOTE=phragle;4421409]Couple of things..

1. if you put that motor in a boat, you will soon have a pile of scrap metal. That is not an engine for a boat, thats an engine for a burger flipper to drop into his beat up camaro so he can be the king of bling and impress his friends doing burnouts in the high school parking lot.

Why do you that? There are minor changes vs that one I posted but it is essentially the same build. Guy has sold a million 383's since 85 and has a boat referral list a mile long. Only thing I was up in the air with was closed water cooling or not. Only other shop I was looking at was prestige motorsports. Used ateco in the past but had a bad experience last time

Merc catalyst and Volvo catalyst are both great products and both manufacturers are having great luck with them. My opinion is to get the boat running correctly and sell it..you would be foolish to think about throwing any money at it.catalyst are easy to work on however they are what they are and you won't change that. If you wanted a performance boat you probably shouldn't have bought a G3 product. Sell it and get yourself a cat like you wanted in the first place and ended up with a 292...

[QUOTE=hotstang46;4421413]Himmm When I searched for info on Roby's motors, I didnt find a mile long list of boat motors, I found complaints of motors with cheap chinese parts that didnt live up to claims... I am also willing to bet that he has you call him and offers an even better deal if you buy outside of ebay to save him ebay fee's, doesnt like paypal for more than a deposit and doesnt like credit cards either... These things are great for avoiding charge backs etc.. This is just from a quick google, I could very well be wrong. Its your money, dispose of it as you wish.


This guy may build a great car motor, he may even build a great boat motor for all I know (though if his list of happy 510 horse 383 boat motors was that extensive, you would think we would have heard of him before) Anyways, If your worried about resale as you stated, and volvo's are hurting the resale (I do agree with you that volvo makes great stuff) how is a pair of no name half chinese motors going to help resale????

I completely agree with your statement, however, the potential audience that would wish to purchase the boat is not considering that when evaluating this boat as I, or potentially you would. Additionally, at 25k, what was there to think about, I wanted a cat but I wanted a good deal too. I have a non functional trim tab. That's it.

I feel like I'm going to end up with an 80mph plus boat, quality brand for 35-40k.