Any updates or we have to wait till Key west race over?

I am heading on Friday to RF to see the boat and pick up the engines. I'll be bringing them back to my shop and tearing into them to see what's what. We plan on spending some time in the boat to see if we can find any issues there that could have caused some of the failures. At this point, I'm not ruling out anything and will do whatever it takes and spend as much time as neccessary to find any and all potential issues. I will be sure to keep you guys up to speed on what we find. Thanks
Eddie

Ha ha, not much of a surpise you got the job, great to hear. Sounds like TRL and the motors are in great hands. Not many have the rep you got here on OSO.

Looking forward to hear the results.

A lot of good info in this thread. Please allow me to ask ony 1 question. What is the year of the mefi 3 mefi 4 ect.? I am wondering if the msds I have are going to cause a problem w my efi.. Thanks in advance. Sorry to thread jack

Merc used the Mefi 3 from 98 til around 02-03 I believe. They never used a Mefi 4.
Eddie

Guess we won't be seeing you in Key West....I am glad for TRL that you got this job.....if you need a place to stay I have a home not far from there that you are welcome to use

Mark

Def. not going to Key West. I am SO busy right now that I don't know which way is up. I am done taking new work in for the next several months, at least.
Mark,
I very much appreciate the house offer. That is exceptionally thoughtful of you. We are only going to be there overnight, so I was just going to grab a hotel near RF. We won't get in until late Friday since we are going to work a half day. It's about an 8-9 hour drive, so we won't be in until about midnight. Thanks again for the offer.
Eddie

It already looks like this project is headed in a better way...(engine-wise) - I know RF is ready to rock-n-roll

It went from an engine builder that never shipped the engines, to an engine builder that is personally driving 20 hours to get the engines himself...

Is this Eddie Young guy for real?:Score-101010:

Holy sheeeet things are going to start happening now ! in a good way for the last time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dean...i really appreciate all ur support throughout this whole debacle. I also appreciate u turning me to YPM. i have yet to meet Eddie yet. However, i can tell u that he is without a doubt the most professional and thorough man i have dealt with since we bought this boat...and i have dealt with a lot of them!! Eddie ALWAYS answers his phone...ALWAYS calls back...ALWAYS follows up and ALWAYS shoots me straight. This is something compleltly foreign to me. Triple 300s knows everything that has gone down over the years. I only hope he doesnt have the same issues on his nxt boat. I wldnt wish the $hit i went thru on my worst enemy. Eddie has yet to "fix" the mess...but his confidence is unwaivering...and that is very reassuring. R3 and Wyatt have been complete gentleman throughout this whole process...and have delivered what they said they would. Now i truly believe that i have an engine builder that will do the same...finally....finally. Again, thank u all for ur support and R3, Eddie and myself will keep everyone posted.

Eric

I know he will give a great service and give you a personal opinion on what to do and not give you a line of **** , I am really curious as well as every body else to see what he finds , ALLOT !!!!! of us are lurking and waiting to find out . I just want to see how this thing runs out with the power and hull improvements . I know you are very sceptickle on trying another builder which you should be after all that has gone on , this is down right crazy !!! . good luck to you and yours , again keep us informed on the progress . also I know I was supposed to keep it quiet when you pm,d me but I had to call Eddie and tell him to get in the fountain section and just read this story and take it from there .

I cant thank u enough for doing that. My dealings with Eddie have already boosted my confidence. Thanks man...i really appreciate it.

I hope you can recover some of your funds from your past builder.

Yes, thank you Dean for pointing this thread out to me. I absolutely HATE to hear about anyone having to go through this. However, I am happy to be the one chosen to clean it up. There is no doubt in my mind that we can fix it. I am really looking forward to getting the engines.
I will let you guys know what I find after i get a look at the boat and engine rigging. Thanks everyone for the votes of confidence and kind words.
Eddie

Git R Done eddie :D

You and me both...but I wont hold my breath.

Then you can get rid of those wing nuts on the engine mounts and put nylocks back on so they can stay in for a while !!!!!!!!!!!!!:evilb:

I have read all the negitive posts on here about me and 35 pages and still going on about how they have not gotten to use their boat the last 2 seasons. I built the engines they ran the other 5 seasons even when they had a overheating problem and they would get the port motor so hot you could cook on it but it still ran. Then they had someone else put water pickups on the bottom and another shop put the Imco SCX drives on the boat and the boat use to run about 100- 101 before all that work then it went 90-92 with the blowers spun up to 9-10 #s of boost which created a lot of blow by on a stock 525 block. We freshened the motors in the summer of 2009 they ran the boat 2010 then at the end of the year they burnt 5 pistons. We checked everything and could not find out why it burnt the pistons. We flowed all the injectors, checked the wiring harness, sent the fuel pumps back to have them flowed, checked all the fuel lines to see if they were collasping and found nothing we thought it was the fuel. After talking to Eric they wanted the speed back and wanted to get away from the blow by so we Wrote a couple different est on going back with the stock blocks and going to the Dart block and stroker cranks to build a little more power to get some speed back. We ended up building 2 -540's short blocks and using everything else they had on the 525' and made 970 HP. We could have made more power but the heads are just to small and if we put bigger heads on then the blower is getting to small and if we went with all that then the 4340 eagle crank would be on the edge and this is the budget and estimate we worked with. After we ran the boat the first time and burnt 2 pistons again I had to find the problem and with all the imput here on this thread some had good sajestions and some were rediculus but when I found the pin burnt in the module I knew that was affecting the ignition timing and we put new MSD ignitions in. I rebuilt that engine and did all the labor for free and just charged for the pistons and rings and the gasket set and I also spent a total of 5 days at Reggies working on the boat for free. When I shipped the motor back and we went out to run it I noticed the knock retard was backing the timing up 8 degrees on the Problem motor and I told Reggie not to run over 3500 rpm untill we got back in and found the problem then that's when the Port ECU just quit now we came back in on one motor. We went back to the shop at 6:00 on Friday night with no parts and I had a 11:00 am flight so evn thou we had more problems I was going to get it fixed I called Reggie and told him to check the wire for the knock sencor so we could fix that problem. After talking to a few GM engineers I found out they had a problem with the Mefi 4a ecu's if the fuel pump spun backwards after shutting the key off it could hurt the fuel pump driver so I was going to upgrade both motors to a mefi 4b to solve that problem. I also told them I would like to see a two stage water pump on the engines because the headers were getting so hot I could not put my hand on them and some of the new tailpipes had a gold tint to them. All that boat needs to make it run is 2 mefi 4b's and fix the knock wire on the starboard motor and I would do the 2- stage pumps. I would like to come down to Eddy's shop and run these on the dyno before he takes two running engines apart. I just wanted to tell my side of the story here. I have no problem with Eric, Gavin, Reggie, or Eddy if he wants to try another builder good luck and if Eddy has any questions on what we did or didn't do he can call me anytime I will help to do what ever it takes to see this boat in the water and running over 115 MPH. Tyler

great response , hats off to you and I hope all of you guys get this figured out .

Eddie is on his way to RF.....getting excited again....

Just landed in our hotel room. I'm beat. 11 hours to get here after a very long week of work. Gotta meet R3 in a few hours. Need sleep.
Eddie

Not trying to ninja this thread, but Tyler, could you explain what you mean by the fuel pump running backwards after the key is off? What kind of pumps? I've been running a 4a for a little over a year and certainly don't want something like this happening to me.

Thanks!

And we know how Eddie needs his beauty sleep , he tries but its not helping much .:evilb:

Griswald,
I imagine he is talking about kick back when the engine is shut off or a slight diesel.

I don't think that's it since he mentions a spike to the fuel pump driver in the ecm itself. Hopefully, he'll chime in.

PM him...or call...he will get back to you in a few weeks...

Just talked to Eddie a few hrs ago......hes on his way back from NC. needless to say there r several things that he feels need to be changed in relation to the fuel system/ignition system/oil coolers. I have a funny feeling that this is just the surface of the problems that will need to be fixed. Part of me is excited...and part of me is dreading the final diagnosis. Regardless...i feel very good about the direction we r going. Thanks to both Eddie and R3 for pulling all this together!!

We just pulled in. We covered right at 1300 miles in about 30 hours. I'm done.
I did find a few no-no's in the boat. I took a bunch of pics but left my cable at the shop. I will post some on Monday so everyone can see where some of the problems lie. None of them are really major in themselves, but combined can result in some big problems or an engine failure. The main issues were as follows:
-the switching valves to change from the saddle tanks to the main tanks. The valves are not full flow ball valves. Also, the mulitude of 90* brass fittings are VERY restrictive. There are several 90* brass fittings coupled together to make 180* and 270* turns. They are small, sharp turning brass fittings that don't flow very good at all.
-the fuel needs to be returned to the tank instead of the suction side of the pump.
-The fuel filter head is to small and restrictive.
All of these items would have been fine with the original 525's and probably never caused any problems. However, with the power in the boat now, these issues are very important and must be addressed.
We are going to dig into the engines on Monday and see what we have to work with.
I have not nor will I turn this into a pissing match pitting myself against Tyler. I really appreciate him reaching out to me and offering help. I very well may take you up on that Tyler. At this point, you know the entire rig much better than I. There is always more than one way to get the job done. I am going to do what works for me. That doesn't mean that Tyler, or anyone else's, way will not or can not work. Tyler has been at this for a long time and didn't get to where he is by not doing something right.
I am just going to focus on doing what I do best and what works for me. I will keep everyone posted as we progress.
Thank you.
Eddie

....spoken with diplomacy and like a true professional.

Give me a holler next week Eddie and let me know what you find out. Im sure both you and I will be in touch with R3 over the next few weeks. I know we (you and RF) can get this thing right....finally.

I recently heard this too from a tuner, I have always simply used the power supply from the mefi that normally powers the pump to instead turn on a 50 amp Bosch relay to power the pump. Takes stress off the mefi's overall power draw and ensures that your pump will not have a voltage drop under wot and with this "new" problem that has been mentioned it would be a NON issue, Smitty

If that's the case, I'm good. I do the same to a 60amp continuous duty relay. Thanks, Smitty.

I'm not one to speculate on the fuel pump ruining drivers, but most any electric motor when spun by another power source is a generator. Perhaps any residual pressure on the pressure side of the pump, that is not past a check valve will turn the pump over backwards as it "depressurizes" on key off, thus causing some voltage generation, opposite of the pumps intended polarity. Not sure, just a thought.

Sounds plausible,and by simply installing a independent 25$ relay this (if true) would become a non-issue. I quit trying to run my fuel pump off my Mefi harness 8 years ago and instead use the keyed fuel pump power FROM the Mefi to trigger a heavy duty relay with 10 gauge power wires from the power source because of running a larger fuel pump then the Mefi system was ever meant to support. Anyone that has a 900+ hp motor will obviously be running a bigger fuel pump then stock and will also have a higher amperage load and SHOULD configure their pump this way too, Smitty

These are Whipple 525 kits..... right? I was under the impression that the fuel pumps were already powered through a relay that was part of the kit. There is a green wire from the ECM that controls the relay. I just replaced the relay on one of my engines.

According to Whipple, the pumps that come with the kit are only good to 900hp. I just bought mine..... I wonder if my kits are different.

On my boat the fuel is returned to the water separator which is between the tank and pump. That's what Whipple recommended. Do you feel that this is an issue? Why would returning fuel to the tank be a better option?

All Merc wiring harnesses have a relay for the fuel pump. It is triggered by a small gray wire. There are 2 relays as part of the harness. One turns on the ecm and the other turns on the fuel pump. On my harnesses, we use 10 gauge wires both in and out of the fuel pump relay. However, we are easily able to put the larger wires in the harness when we build it.The wires in the stock Merc efi harness are 16 or 18 gauge. They work fine for the smaller stock pump, but on larger pumps, I prefer the larger gauge wire. The relay is large enough, but making a 6+ ft run with 18 gauge wire could cause a problem. The other option is to let the stock relay with the smaller wires trigger another relay with heavier gauge wires.
Returning the fuel to the tank is always the best option. In pretty much every case, there is at least one way or another to get it back to the tank. Depending on the boat and how the fuel system is run, you could have vapor lock issues as well as aerating the fuel. Look at the Merc 502 Mags. They were famous for vapor locking and they returned the fuel to the tank and that pump was much smaller. The larger the pump, the more fuel it moves, the hotter that fuel gets, the more potential for problems. It's pretty much always easier to return the fuel to the filter head or inlet of the pump, but that doesn't make it the best bet.
Eddie

Eddie, does this boat have the Superflow fuel valves or the originals? I was under the impression that once you return to the tank that you have to the special valve so that you are not filling a tank that you are not pulling from.

Do you have 4 tanks or 2?

It seems that returning to the water separator causes inconsistant fuel pressure. Do you have gauges? Have you compared them to mechanical?

There are 2 tanks. I just installed electric gauges on the dash and mechanical ones at the regulator. I only made 1 short run after installing them, but when I checked at idle and at 3500 they were about the same. I'll pay attention to them to see if the pressure stays consistent. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to return the fuel to the tank. I'm guessing that's why Whipple put a fuel cooler on the return line.

http://www.hardin-marine.com/c-1376-...k-returns.aspx

If there are no spare bungs on the tank, this is the easiest way. Split the fuel fill hose and return there.

I put the Imco 6 port electric fuel switching valves on mine and plumed it so it returns to the tank it is sucked from , cut the filler necks and made my own tees , with the Imco valves the fuel guages follow the tanks its pulled from and you can switch tanks right from the dash , the factory switching valves I think are very restrictive and dont look to appealing .