Not sure yet...I hope to know more when I talk to CMI on Monday. I am also having Tyler head stud both motors..just in case it was a gasket failure, which lead to lean condition. He is also going to re-flow all injectors to make sure they are right. Ill keep you all posted....I just want my boat before the snow flys. lol

I guess I thaught they should have been studded anyways with that kind of power , so you shipped both engines back to him ?

If they heads were not studed I would wonder about the mains. If the mains are not studed I would do that to while they are down. Cheap Insurance!!!
Allen

Form that kind of power that would be allot of corners cut .

Back to the 2005 Ex tread please!:angry-smiley-038:

Picked up a new-to-me 37 OL that was detailed at RF this Saturday. Saw the boat from this thread in the same building that my boat was in. What's the story on it? Any further progress on it? Was kind of cool to check out RF in person. Especially for a MI boy... long drive!

I wonder why there were no studs on there before this point?!?!?!

Which boat did you pick up??? :coolcowboy:

thats the million dollar question...

A 37 Outerlimits Stiletto that was for sale locally. Has Goodwin 700 NA 572's and Konrad ACE's. Boat is in amazing shape for a '98. It originally came from WI. She's back in the Great Lakes where she belongs... :)

Congrats, post some pics in the OL forum! :cool:


Sorry to get OT guys...

The motor is almost back together I am waiting on 1 piston and one ex valve. Manely had the .100 long 1.900 valve on back order and know one around had one. As far as the heads being studded we are making 8 pounds of boost. When the 525's were in there the last 4 years they were making 9 pounds of boost with head bolts with no problems. Then all of a sudden last year they burned 7 pistons on the back motor after running the same tune forever. So the first thing I did was pull all the injectors and flowed them and guess what they were all good so now I pulled the whole fuel system and cheched all the filters and had SX flow the pump and it was all good. Now I checked the whole cooling system and coolers for a overheat and check the ECU for any codes of a over heat NO Problems there either. Now I pressure test the headers to see if they are cracked and letting water back in. NO Leaks there either. So I pumped all the gas out of both tanks just in case for some reason he got some bad gas in that tank because it seemed to have the problem after Gavin filled it up. When I took the front motor apart to get the heads and blower off the head gaskets and pistons looked great in that motor. So I wrote A couple est of what it was going to take to fix the one motor and then wrote a est to make them 540's so they could go to a Dart block and have a thicker cylinder wall so we could controll the blow by with the blower. After talking with both Seely brothers they did not want to spend a lot of money and they have been a good customer for years and seeing why we could not find a reason it burnt the pistons I worked with them and took alot of their old parts in on trade for the labor to build them these 975 HP 540's. No where in this project did we cut any corners because it's name on the project when it's done. I built the new motors and tuned them on the dyno and whatched the air fuel and cylinder temps real close looking for any problems and the cylinder temps were 1275- 1300 and the air fuel was 11.0 at 8 pounds of boost plenty safe to ship the motors to RF. After the engines were installed I flew down myself and fired up both motors and went on the first test ride with my laptop and 0/2 meter hooked to the engine. We warmed the engine up and rode at 3000 rpm to heat the oil up and the air fuel was 11.6 11.8 making about 3-4 pounds of boost up 4800 rpm we made 8 pounds then to 5400 and still 8 pounds the air fuel was 10.8 the boat was running about 111mph we then stoped and turned around and ran it up again then I noticed the blow by out of the motor and I went right up to the dash and the water was 110 degrees the oil was 190 and we had 25 pounds water pressure so we came back in on one motor and I pulled all the spark plugs and they were all black accept # 4 it was clean. I pulled the motor and disassembled the engine right there and found the piston torched right by the intake valve so I had the engine shipped back to my shop in Michigan and when I took the head off the other side it started burning 2 pistons on the other side. Ok the Air fuel was 10.8 the spark plugs were black and the piston tops are all black from burnt fuel. I tested the innercooler and it is not leaking and sent the headers back to CMI and they tested good. The front motor is ok it is just this back motor and after all I have done to check everything you all think it was just because there were no head studs. :eek:

Sorry ,we just assumed yes assumed it would have head studs , again sorry for upsetting anybody .

Tyler, its good to hear what it takes to get high HP out of these engines -- its not just a bolt-together-and-go proposition!

It wouldn't have anything to do with less exhaust back pressure from shorter tailpipes, would it?

Update....I spoke with Tyler this morning and he has consulted with some of his peers (Richie Zuhl, Keith Eickert) and there seems to be a consensus, based upon the burn pattern on the tops of the pistons, that the issue is related to a timing issue. Long story short, we are installing new Billet MSD distributers, and replacing the PCM on the Stbd motor just to eliminate any goofy computer glitches. Tyler is sending down a leak down gauge to Lil R and he will do a leak down test on port motor. IF all is good then we will move forward. If not..then I will probably send port motor back for Tyler to look at.

CMI tested the headers and they held 60PSI with no leaks. However, they are 7 yrs old and we are going to replace the Stbd headers with the new Gen X style. We will then send the old Stbd headers to Tyler and he is going to weld AF bungs into each tube so he can read AF on each cylinder..as opposed to a left bank/right bank average taken @ the Tailpipe when he re-dynos the Stbd motor.

Shooting for another visit to RF at the end of this month. Do any of you guys wanna loan me some money?? Or maybe let me live with you?....WE ARE TAPPED!!! :eek:

IDK?? Someone smarter than me might answer this one...lol.

It burned the pistons with the other ones. and it is just the back motor. I still want to pull all the water restictors out of the tailpipes to get all the volume thru them now we got plenty of water flow. Mercury put those in there to keep water pressure in the 525's.

Everytime I think about having a big motor put in my boat, I read all this and decide tame power is for me.

huh? uhm....there was nothing talking about how to build high HP engines in that post? What I read was: Motors keep blowing up and we don't know why, it has 10.8 AFR, and no head studs are fine" nothing about bolt and go operations? and no high HP engine specs...

I feel for you guys, this sounds really frusterating... and expensive!!!

Tyler, it really appears you will have covered the basics well. I'm sure this is a stupid question, but are you 100% sure the head(s) and block are straight?

And FWIW, regardless if the lack of studs is associated with this reoccurring issue or not, I'm shocked they weren't in there in the first place!

I know in the beggining of this thread that you posted that you normally did nost stuff because off all the self professed experts. I am not trying to be a self professed expert but the MSD HEI distributors have cost many problems, dollars and sleepless nights. The only people I know that have success with these distributors buy 2 pairs and change them every spring and send the used pair back to MSD for repair which is to much trouble for me. Please talk to Tyler about this before you buy these distributors.
I have had far better success with the stock distributors (yes one let me down this past year but it was 10 years old). Just this year I went with the DUI distributor and they have been flawless thus far but have not stood the test of time, so I will not tell you they are the greatest thing since sliced bread but will say they have already outlasted every MSD HEI distributor I have used (which has been 4 now).
You can Ignore this post (and I will even delete if you ask me too) but I feel that you are setting yourself up for more headache and expense for something I feel offers no gains. please do atleast a little research.
Allen

Nevermind, reread thread.....

TCBoss302,
You might consider reading the entire thread and I believe if you do you will be deleting your above post.
Allen

LMAO!!!!! :lolhit:

Im not that smart tho.....lol.

Sound's like it's going lean. old rear motor had same problrem, I would look at wiring harness and grounds maybey bad voltage on that motors system? you stated ran fine on dyno so that would lead me to belive boat system related.

Thank you Allan...real world experience is very helpfull. I will relay info to Tyler. I honestly dont know which way to turn. I just want the boat to run....and do so for more than 7 minutes before it blows up. lol. Im confident that Tyler will work the issues out. He has been building hi-perf boat engines for over 30yrs...Maybe we just have bad luck. :confused:

Thanks, reread thread.

Me too. I've spent more on f*king with the engines that I did to buy the boat, on both my last 2 boats. I think I've learned that boats should have boat engines (outboards) or truck engines (diesels), not car engines. They just don't hold up to the sustained load. Think about it: the dyno runs last seconds, and that was OK. Put it in the boat and run for minutes and it blows up (of course you want it to run for hundreds of hours).

These leaks can be caused by inconsistent heating, particularly across the top of the block and the head, combined with very high cylinder pressures. Getting the temperature consistent is not easy. The German car manufacturers need to do this because the Autobahns allow people to cruise at high speed (high load) for extended periods of time. There are very few non-German cars in the left lane on the autobahn. Ferraris? Vettes? Jaguars? Nope. BMWs, Porsche, Mercedes, Opel, VW, yes. I've seen so many GM V8s blown up on the side of the autobahn its bizarre, considering there are hardly any at all over there.

Over the past several decades of owning power and sail boats, and sometimes running serious yachts for much more wealthy individuals, I've seen that maintenance is about 10% to 20% of new boat cost per year.

But I still expect maintenance to be as on a car or house (a very small percentage of original cost). My expectations do not meet my experience...

I've always gone with stock Merc and now Ilmor engines so I've never had a custom engine made. Stupid question here: when you pay a custom builder to put together engines like this- and they grenade on the test run- who eats the cost of fixing the engine: the customer, engine builder, or do you split it?

Now that's an interesting question, one that just beggs for an interesting answer.

My boat with tame power has not had anything other than maintainance. That was not the case with the big sea rays I owned.

Ummmmmm.......well.....ummmmmmmmm......hmmmmm..... .....uhhhhh well......riiiiiiiight. LOL.

I've been in your shoes a few times with projects. Hang in there, it will work out. I know you didn't ask but in my experience, a conservative approach to the problem has always worked best. Both for my sanity AND my wallet.

Good luck, you can always work on it tomorrow.

Bryan

This has to be one of the worst answers to a question that I have ever seen in my life...:bsflag:

i bet i know the answer to that and probley so do you,,,,,,joe boater

The engine builder in this case did not build complete new engines with all new accessories. He rebuilt 6 year old engines with some 6 year old accessories. If one of these 6 your old accessories caused the problem why should the engine be one the hook?

If it were me, when the engines go back in the engine builder would have his laptop hooked up looking at the called for timing numbers and being verifyed with a timing light First through out the rpm range under no load and then again while under load.

Ofcourse most engine builder will not like this comment because who wants to be in engine compartment at speed with lots off hot stuff and turning belts. Most would agree to due it on the dyno, but ultimately the engine lives (or not) inside the engine compartment.
Allen

New blocks, cranks, cams, pistons, rings...etc. Old blocks were gen 6 502's. These are brand new DART 540's. So...all in all with the exception of intake, blower, ignition, heads etc...a lot of it was actually brand new. Furthermore, the heads, valves, valve springs etc.. had just been re-worked by Tyler last year...and that engine (OE 502) had been rebuilt by him 2yrs prior to that. This all being said, I am not saying anyone is at fault, and I have faith that Tyler is going to figure all this out. But what I am saying is that in the last 4 years I have had 3 sets of motors built for this boat, and could of bought another 42" Ftn with all the money that has been spent since 2007. These are the facts. Again, not laying blame..just informing all that are following the thread.

I appreciate your candor. Asking somone like yourself who has been through this process and getting a straight up answer is what helps people like myself make an informed decision about wheather or not they ever want to (or can afford to) go down the path of building/owning a pair of high hp custom engines.

Sounds like you guys are due for some good luck - hope you get it.

I would think very long and hard if I were you...

Thank you, I would just like to drive my boat more than two times a year...it never got wet this year. Oh well...maybe 2012 will be the year.

When I was a kid I built motors for my cars. I was always tweaking or fixing something that broke. If you enjoy it then have at it. Its not cheap and you really need two boats.