Hack.. I have a brand new set... :)
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...ers-525-a.html

I never had any idea that the failures and problems were this wide spread and they seem to keep coming. This is really a horrible situation for both CMI and the Mercury Racing engine customers. This is also not good for the industry and such as it just helps nail another coffin nail in the performance marine industries barely floating ship!

Just my two cents here and some of my simple engineering training and experience, but CMI's idea for this "cool collar" gap between the outer header pipe and the header flange seems like a mistake to me. My thought here is that these headers are fairly heavy to begin with and they tend to vibrate and flex when the engine torques and the boat slams or pounds as all do. This reduction in the strength of two pipes welded to the flange would seem to put a lot of stress at the bottom welds and added heat from a section exposed to 1250 to 1400 degree inside exhaust gas temperatures with no outer cooling. If a lot of the cracking problems are showing at this location then I think my thought and ideas may be well founded.

In getting heads around this header problem, if Mercury pushed their ideas, production designs, material and method specs. on CMI, then I also think Mercury should step up and bear some of the cost and responsibility for this problem that obviously many of their customers have suffered. I know some would say that once they are out of warranty the responsibility supposedly ends, but if Mercury and CMI were responsible for a obvious down the road problem for their engine customers I would think they should have let the customers know at purchase time that they may be experiencing these possible issues down the road as they do with valve train life issues and have made time certain checks on the headers for customers to make sure they do not loose engines and such. If these headers have a fixed life in use then just define it and let the customer know he has to budget and plan for replacement before failures occur.
In any event I as well as most in the industry would like to see this kind of product problems slow and stop and see the performance boaters stop suffering through these kinds of expensive and costly problems. This is bad for all in the sport and industry!
I feel that CMI headers have always been considered an excellent product for most of their history and I hope they can return to problem free products and a great viable future for our industry.

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

Very well said Ray... I don't know if Mercury Racing and/or CMI read these threads, but there are a TON of performance boating customers that are being left hanging here with NO apparent help OR EVEN ADVISE (!) from the very people that we as consumers trusted with our hard earned dollars!

CMI and Mercury Racing should at the very least CLEARLY define the problems and issues here. It's WAY past the time that they should have shed some light on these faulty headers and resulting catastrophic failures, rather then leaving all of us in the dark and fending for ourselves!

:angry-smiley-038:As for my 525 boat - I knew something was wrong when I a valve went byebye:grinser010: Had to rebuild both those motors and that was $25K or so if I recall correctly.

In my 700 boat - I notice water leaking from where the header connects to the tail pipe with the clamp. It was dripping from that area - should never have watter there. Pulled #8 plug and pumped the gulf of MX out of it. You can ck it a few different ways.
1. Just as I explained
2. Pull the header and pressure ck it. Might only need to pull it off and see it has water in it
3. Pull plugs and ck them

After I had these issues and talking with 2 friends with Donzi's and 525's. they pulled theirs to pressure ck them and out of 8 headers - go ahead and guess -----------5 were leaking.

If CMI admitted fault and had a recall, it would cost them huge. Then you would have unrelated problem customer trying to get warranty also. But they should do something. I am looking to drop, to me alot of money on a fairly new boat and have to worry about headers leaking and spend aditional large dollars after, that's BULL. As someone said earlier they should post bullitins and tell us what to look for but this would be admitting guilt.
I never realized it was such a big problem, my gill's are looking pretty good right now!!

This very problem STOPPED me last year form making an offer on a NEW 2007 38 DONZI ZR leftover!!!!!!
Dean

There have been 7 sets of CMIs replaced this year in my area.

So I assume Smarty has had no problem getting people to give him a call?

I lost my motor to this over a month ago. Dropped a valve and it was done. I run solid lifters I know to check every so often for lash. No questions no problems fix if need to. An understanding like that would have saved 15k. This is boating we are used to it but I think we always new clock was ticking on certain things.
I know they make things that do not break look at their navy stuff.

Unfortunately, he was banned from OSO couple weeks ago.

Was he? Are any of the posts still there?

He is completely wiped off the OSO earth.

Smarty's info is not showing banned, however; I have copies of just about everything that was deleted from previous threads, and posts.
What do you wanna know? :evilb:

replaced with what brand???

If they stood behind their defective product then they'd be bankrupt. They'll sue Merc if the class action suit is brought against them because it'll put them out of business.

The choices are few. I went with the new GenX from CMI. The material and welding on these appear to be much better than the junk I took off.

Can you only get the Gen X headers through CMI or are there otheroutlets? Also what type of value or market do you think there is for 525 Header take off?. I just had both my engines rebuilt and I'm getting a BAD feeling about the HEADERS. I've had 2 boats with 525's with no problems, I just wonder how much LUCK I have left!!!!

Just discovered a leak in the collector on my ilmor 625....

What about 600sci's, any known problems there?

Maybe this is the answer to all these CMI headers problems!

http://www.monstermarinestore.com/pr...?categoryID=59

The year is now 2011. How are new CMI headers for an HP500EFI? CMI made the pipes for my Formula and I need to replace these as they are 10 years old now. Would the new ones be good?

Thanks for the post, but what difference would "internal rotting" make with or without the "cool collar". Where is this internal "rotting" happening and why?

Giving this some thought myself, I now have more questions. It seems to me the weakest part of a header design is the weld and not the unmodified portion of a stainless tube. To avoid getting water inside the exhaust tube if a weld leaked, they moved the water jacket weld away from the flange. This way if there was a leak on that water jacket weld, it would leak OUTSIDE and not go into the engine via the exhaust port.

So if it doesn't leak there at the weld, it has to be internal. Is the inside pipe getting too hot due to lack of water flow? Is the inside pipe not centered within the outer water jacket pipe? How is the inner pipe kept floating in the center of the water jacket pipe?

These pictures are of the "cool callar" type. To me the rusty one is an external weld leak and would not have caused water to get in the engine causing a failure.

Talking out loud here! :)

Nort,
I don't believe that the 500 EFI's had that many problems, You are a testment to that, getting 10 years our of your CMI's, E-tops I think. The problems really started with the CMI "Sweeper" headers, (I.E. HP525, 600sci, 700 sci). Check with Teague and see what he recommends, he should be able to give you some good options, since I think he carries a few different headers. If it were me, I would look at some KE's, (my personal choice), IMCO Power Plus, or the Stainless Marine gen II or III. I have not heard anything bad about Stellings either
Hope this helps,
Dean

I appear to be reinstated. Thread is up too. I will play by the rules, the following was sent to me from OSO.

"Hello Smarty,

Thank you for your participation on our website. You are and have been a valued and long-term member of Offshoreonly; your posting privileges, post count, and Platinum status have been retained. You are welcome to post as normal.

There has been an issue with some of your most recent posts which we believe have skirted our TOS and site guidelines with regard to commercial posting/solicitation of business in the forums, specifically soliciting other members to join a class-action lawsuit. Please review the guidelines and edit any posts you have made to comply with the site rules.

For you convenience, here are links to the OSO guidelines and TOS:"

Thank you, OSO, for reinstating my posting privileges.

Welcome back bro'!:drink: Can you please PM your # so we can discuss something?
Thanks,
Dean

............................

Welcome back Smarts :drink:

Thank you.

I am going next week to look at 07 600 boat, I scared now?

Here's what I don't get, after all these failures, why are people still buying ANYTHING from CMI? Some are even fixing their motors that were damaged by CMI headers and then buying new CMI's to replace the old ones. I wouldn't spend a dime with CMI simply based on their lack of response to the well documented failures of their product......

The legal stuff is in limbo, here is a copy of an e-mail message that I have sent to the affected consumers/potential plaintiffs:

"I have just been informed that the class action law firm that I would be working with in order to file this suit, is now backing out of the class action filing. It has been suggested that localized consumer fraud cases be filed, but I am not in agreement with that course of action even though it is a legal alternative. I am still of the thinking that there is a faulty marine header in the market place and therefore it is a class of consumers that has been affected and deserve to have their case(s) heard.



Until I find a deep pocket litigation-firm to back me, I not am not sufficiently capitalized to commence this suit (my pockets aren't deep enough). Sorry for the delay in responding, I have been put on hold by this firm for three months just to have this blow-up in my face after compiling all the information and working diligently at this issue. I hope that I can be of help to you, I will keep you informed of what will happen next, but for he time being the class action lawsuit is dead in the water."

Stephen

My take exactly. I wouldn't touch their products with someone else's 10 foot pole.

Had CMI e-tops on my 502 -500hp, tube leaked and sucked a valve. blew the motor. I sent them to the factory to be repaired and tested. they said the port is unrepairable and not covered for warranty. I put KE's on the boat. runs great

Just found two holes in our 08 700sci's wouldn't have noticed if I didn't changenplugs and see water on them. Its crazy the money we pay for mercury combos and for them not to stand be hind it is crazy. Also our boat has never seen salt water so the can't use that as a reason. Keep us updated would be interested there's anything wen can do.