Low water pickups
 

My 1999 35 Lightning single step has the infamous low water pickup Bravo HP's. Have to be real careful in shallow areas or you trash the sea pumps and plug the coolers.

I was told that this hull does not really need lwp's. True or not? If so, standard Bravo lowers with side water pickups would work ok and not cause cooling problems at high speeds? What would standard lowers cost? Is there a market for my lwp lowers whereby I could sell them or trade for standard lowers?

Also, has anyone heard of the supposed fix for the lwp lowers by drilling extra holes in the location where the side pickups would normally be? This is supposed to relieve some of the suction from the lwp holes and reduce the tendency to clog the sea pumps and coolers.

Rich

Waterfoul asked the question awhile back in the tech section about adding the holes to make them dual water pick ups. I'm not sure what the final answer was.

I have a 97 single step and can tell you from a bad experience you need low water pickups on the 35'. My boat had the factory nose cones with low water pick ups on the side of the bullet. These didn't work. I would start to suck air over 60 mph. My water pressure would drop under 10 lbs at wot and there were signs on the risers of excessive heat. I added dual water pick ups at the beginning of last season and that ended the air problem. Now I was running in excess of 45 lbs of water pressure.:eek: :mad: I ended up adding pressure relief valves to fix that problem. Now the boat is perfect!:)
Dan

Candyman,
thanks for the advice. I am running around 30 lbs of water pressure at full speed on the port motor and 26 lbs on the stb. How did you install the pressure reliefs?

BTW, I am in Libertyville, IL

Does your boat have the anniversary paint? Do you boat out of Hammond occasionally?

I didn't use the Merc valves because they were not available yet. They are much cheaper than the ones I used. You must have 500's because your pressure is not as bad as mine was. The links below will take you to pictures and part numbers for the Merc valve. If you want I can copy the pictures and email them to you.

[email protected]

Dan

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...water+pressure

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...e+relief+valve