I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and give me an opinion.

I have a 98 Fountain 29' Fever with a pair of 454's. The boat is used primary in salt water and its time to replace the factory exhaust manifolds and I have a few options I'm tossing around.

1. Go with whats there...stock, Mercury manifolds and risers

2. Upgrade to the Eddie Marine "Stainless" Exhaust system. I believe its still a cast iron manifold with a stainless elbow with stainless pipe.

My mechanic told me I would be replacing the exhaust every 5-6 years bc of salt water usage. Stock manifolds and risers will run me about $1800 for both motors and the Eddie Marine $3000 or so for both motors.

Which will be better in the long run? Wouldn't the Eddie Marine Exhaust cast iron manifold have the same life span as the stock manifolds? I feel like I'm missing something and need your help to point our what I'm not seeing.

Thanks you again for your time and advise

E top headers..

I just ran into the same boat (no pun intended) with the 502 in my Cobalt. Your mechanic is right that manifolds and risers will need to be replaced every 5 or 6 years regardless of how well you flush it. I've managed 6 years out of my old boat and 5 years out of this boat. And when I pulled them off this year, the cooling ports were nearly completely blocked with rust and corrosion buildup.

I was going to go after market but had a hard time finding anything that would bolt up directly to the newer 502 EC motor. What you should determine is how long you plan to keep the boat and what it would take to get your money back if you went aftermarket. I'm about $2100 in for used OEM parts to do mine and it would have been $4000 to do aftermarket. No brainer for me as I probably won't have the boat another 5 years.

Unless you've done upgrades to your motor, I would think stock manifolds and some SS risers (like Imco) would be the perfect combination of value, durability and bling. I've used that combination many times with absolutely no issues.

Have to replace my exhaust do to power up grades, I was told to go the stainless marine route vs CMI if the bling factor didn't matter to me. Performance about same and more paper in my wallet.

Stainless Marine makes a great product for your application.

Ditto....

I have seen stainless marine manifolds and riser set-ups last 10yrs in a salt water application. ( if flushed after use.)

I installed the Stainless Marine HP on my Cigarette and am very happy with them. We used the performance manifolds, I think they are called Gen 3.

Both Eddie Marine's exhaust system and Stainless Marine exhaust systems are both Aluminum with SS risers. Hard coat anodized (for salt water) and then powdercoated. http://www.diamondperformanceparts.com/home.php?cat=255

Ill go the other direction and suggest the cheaper aftermarket cast manifolds and look for the stainless merc risers on sale ,you can get it all for about a grand if you shop around . That set up should last 3-4 years maybe more in salt . The stainless risers are light, coat the gaskets and pull them once a year for a lookey loo