Requesting information on Engines
 

Offshore,

I am looking at a re-power for my 47 Wellcraft Excalibur(Heavy Cruiser). I wish to upgrade from the 496 twins to a bit better. Im am starting with new induction and ignition(see lists below). But, there are so many options for builders. There are those with great reputations but they cost a lot. I know, you do get what you pay for. At the same time, Im not going for killer top gun performance, just reliable but better than stock performance. My goal is to go with big cubes to give me all the Hp/tq I need at lower RPMs. A 540-572 with mild cam and compression, but forged, balanced, and quality components. I have found one engine builder that seems to fit the bill, but there are no mentions on this forum about them except for some confusion between to unrelated companies that share a similar name.

My ask: Who has any knowledge of this company being used in a marine application? skipwhiteperformance This is not the same guys that have a bad reputation whiteperformance.com. There are related by family, but not in business. So if anyone has good or bad reviews for Skip White, please let me know. There are always a lot of great opinions on this forum, and this forum did help me already helped me find a great mechanic (BUP is the man!). He is part of the reason I am asking for help from this forum. Skip White seems the real deal, and the reviews online are almost all very positive, but I cant find anything about their engines in the marine world. Automotive builds dont last in boats, but Skip White says they know what they are doing. But I need so validation before I proceed. As a note, I am a Corvette owner, and there any many folks in the Corvette owner forums that claim Skip is everything he claims on his site. This seems to be a common thread in the reviews, but there is precious little about their engines in marine applications, so that is my focus there. This is also a lot of discussion on offshore parts. This is a debate I hope we can avoid here. It is almost religious sometimes! I have optioned the engine with what I believe to be proven value parts. Some may be offshore though, please advise if something is to be avoided based on facts. So I know the bits about to good to be true.... I hoping to focus on facts about Skip White. Is he who he says he is, and can he build a good marine motor or not.

The following is the engine Im am looking at along with upgrades for marine application. BTW, I cant post URL yet so edit as needed below.

skipwhiteperformance dotcom/catalog/bbc-chevy-540-555-engine-stage-70-dart-block-crate-motor-724-hp-base-engine_89340/
540/555 Base engine, Dart 325cc heads 8.8:1 CR, Cam option #3, ARP Rod bolt upgrade, Forged Crank Upgrade, Race Balance, Inconel valves for wet exhaust, Tucker Marine valve seats, Dyno tune and break in engine. They claim this to be a 600hp/625TQ engine in this config. Cost per motor comes it at just about $10,000. Makes you want to go mmmmm.

Im looking at these manifolds
eddiemarine dotcom/shop/exhaust-and-accessories/emi-thunder-exhaust-1/emi-thunder-exhaust-big-block-chevy-1/emi-thunder-exhaust-system-bb-chevy-with-high-perf-ss-risers-emi-511

And this induction system:
edelbrock dotcom/pro-flo-4-efi-system-for-big-block-chevy-rectangle-port-engines-35860.html

Let me know your thoughts! And thank to all in advance.

^^^^^ Thanks for the compliment above.

I have never heard of him nor have any experience ZERO with this builder for any type of marine builds so it is good to be asking. I do know the other whites performance does not have a good name period.

Does anyone have info about Skip and or any related marine engine builds or anything marine related for this builder in TN ? I even asked some other people who work in the marine industry and even live in TN, they never heard of him.

Not saying this is good or bad but the OP is looking for real world experience before he does anything. THANKS

LINKS DO NOT WORK on my end --- seeing if this helps and A BIG NOPE still do not work.

Have heard nothing about skip white, and not real sure Smitty (articfriends) would build a motor for you, but if he would I would bet it would be a great build. After the build you would still need them tuned aboard the boat for full performance

he is looking at ground up brand new builds and the price of doing 2 of them on a certain budget is the concern here. He is looking for the best bang for your buck on the 2 new engine builds. I could build them as well but I do not have the buying power for new blocks and all related new parts that a daily engine builder has whom buys in volumes.. And in my area Machine work is high as well plus persay not really a go to for daily marine engine builders around either. Tough area for true marine performance engine builds.

There have been a few threads where Skip has built engines for members. The engines seemed to be fine and ran good. I believe he is the uncle. After everyone got past the name recognition (good or bad) I have not heard anything bad about the builds.

No way you can build a 540 marine engine from scratch with new good quality parts for 10k.

Not marine but here is their website and description.
Here it is:
https://www.skipwhiteperformance.com...pentine_90358/

Add $10,000 more to complete it!

Just read the negative feedback on ebay, that alone would have me look else where.

Im in no way in the business of bashing others (we're all in this together)
But, that being said. If Skip White racing is the same "White Racing Engines" that powered a 35 fountain we recently went through, the engines were junk from the start. Maybe acceptable for a Street Rod as long as you never lit the tires up, but far from offshore worthy. Lots of imported parts, put together in a rush.
It's certainly possible someone had their hands in the engines after White Performance built them (maybe its a different White Performance altogether?), but if you follow the history of the boat its un-likely.
Do your homework, be careful.

First, thanks to all for your helpful and informative responses. Yes, White Performance are the guys with the bad rep on Ebay and just about anywhere. Skip White has a 99.5% positive on Ebay, and has no open BBB issues for 3 years. In drag racing circles here in Texas, and in my Corvette club, they have a stellar reputation. As for the cost, when I spoke to them, their claim is that they are major suppliers of the components the build with, in fact they state in most cases their buyers are other suppliers so they get everything at very low costs due to no other middle men and their volume. I have been in the parts business with specialty packaging systems, and I can tell you that every layer of middle man adds anywhere from 25-400%, and some even more. Does this apply to engines? I dont know why it would not. So it is more than possible that they can build for the stated prices. IF they prove to me they use the parts they claim for the price they claim, who are we to say they cant. Unless they are somehow cheating, but they do have a good reputation in the automotive crate engine market. I will press them for more proof on the parts, and will continue to press for validation on their marine capabilities. If I go with these guys, then we can find out for sure. I'll continue to post on this forum, and maybe you guys will have a chance to say "I told you so". And then again, maybe the cost of boating might just go down a bit for all us!

For Skip WHite performance, he has a 99.5% positive. For White Performance, a bit lower at 97.1%. But Skip has issues with delivery, and shipments as well as the whiner types that claim it was not what was pictured. With White, pretty much the same. But it is the raw numbers that are key, Skip has nearly 7000 responses with only point 5% being negative, where WhiteP has only 700 total responses. I dont see anything in the ebay feedback for either of them that indicate anything but poor customer service. That is a common thing these days anywhere you go.

Well of course! Im just getting a long block, so lots more to buy for sure!

Yeah, I dont have enough posts moderated yet to qualify to put in links. It tried to make that clear, but I may have just made things harder, sorry about that!.

I certainly had this phone call with him --- and this is why he posting looking for whatever info

Buy what you want, makes me no difference.......30 negative feedback's in 12 months is excessive and there all about customer service, from shipping not as pictured parts,not shipping on time, junk parts, read the posts below

https://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA...e&mPg=2&page=1

Your point is clearly stated and on the surface makes sense. I do appreciate your feedback and Im not trying to create an argument with you. But, that is still 1/2 of a percentile of the overall 5073 positive events across 12 months. That's better than Apple or Amazon. If you have ever had to deal with a large and diverse customer base, you quickly realize you are not going to please everyone. I spent a lot of time looking at the responses both negative and positive. But one half of a percent negative responses across nearly 5073 total sales events is actually in sales, really good numbers. Exceptionally so. I also looked at most all of the positives and they were very helpful too. So though 30 sounds excessive, given the total number of transactions, it is not really. But thank you again for your thoughts on this, and I will continue to be thoughtful on this point. Here is the data Ebay uses and how this gets calculated:

Sounds like you already have your mind made up and are doing a little free advertising for this guy.

I have no info re the builder in question & not tying to hijack the thread, so apologies if warranted.

If you have 2nd thoughts on the big cube / low rpm direction I'm about to have a pair of fresh Ilmor V10s available for sale.

This is a little premature - "we" just got them out of the boat - so I don't have all the tech specs yet but they were in a 43 Schiada and are fresh / break in hours only (which in MI is all of summer '18) off a BoostPower rebuild. They were MV-10 625 and we wounded the starboard engine; I sent them to Alexi @ Boostpower & when he was done with the rebuild/refresh on the pair they dynoed 787 @ 6100 if memory serves. We put them in the boat at 725. Alexi has the info and dyno sheets, Lee @ Schiada has the engines & I had planned to get the all info together and list them right after the holiday madness was done. I'm going to have engines/drives/props available. (Brett @ BBlades just sent me a box for one of the props, its got a very small squiggle at the tip of 1 blade that needs to addressed)

Someone is sure to ask "Why are you selling fresh engines?"

I'll post the novel when I list them but the short version is this; our summers are short, we use the boat like a motorhome, and if we have an issue when we're traveling the Great Lakes I want the local Merc shop to be willing to work on the boat. Alexi / Boostpower is fantastic and we have a different boat with his power which is why we asked him to do the work on the Ilmors. We sent the boat west to Schiada and asked Lee to "make it new" & the old power isn't compatible with all the new electronics available...so we have new power & drives and freshened "old stuff" stuff to sell.

Good luck with your build & I'm hoping to have all my ducks in a row and pics/prices listed next week.

Here's hoping the fat guy in the red suit was good to everyone & have a Happy (and safe) New Year

Cheers

Davey

Might want to consider deleting this thread and starting a new one with the builders name right in the title so anyone with experience with him sees it right away and knows what you want. Of the people who have replied no one really seems to have heard of him which in itself might be telling. Try asking on Fbook also.

Interesting! I look forward to what you post. But I too worry about the lack of resources to maintain such engines. We are planning to do the "Great Loop", or at least part of it. Having reliable engines is key, but also having engines that can be easily serviced is important too. V-10s would be very cool indeed though!

That sounds like a good idea. -j

Nope. Just trying to get some facts. I like working with validated and researched facts. I am also wary of the adage you get what you pay for. I have relied on that before, but still got ripped by someone with "a great reputation". If someone can prove their work and their product, then in my mind, that beats reputation hands down. SO Im looking for proof of this guys work. That all. -j

Hi OSO,

It has been sometime since I have asked or added anything on this thread. All of your input was very helpful. I did go with the Skip White engines, and so far the build quality has been great. Many thanks to John M for his patience and his excellent advice on everything!

But.....

I can tell you that I have had all kinds of issues with this project, but all of them are related to the rigger I have been using. I guy with a great rep, a guy with years of experience, a guy that many recomended. Crewed on offshore teams in the past. And he is not what he said he was. I have lawyer involvement now, and after two years of the boat on the hard, I finally have it back in the water. I have to finish it still myself. But the engines, they are sound thus far. Still working a break in cycle, and only have about 4 hours the engines, but everything seems to be moving forward finally. I have paid this person many thousands of dollars to remove my old engines and drive and replace them with all new. I provided the new everything. But after 12 months of effort, this person had only succeeded in installing the drives and engines but absolutely nothing else. He did not even bolt the engines to the mounts. Just set them there and called it done. This person "lost" parts, sold some of my parts to others, and then asked me to replace those parts. Shift plates, tie bars, etc. I actually know the guy he sold my tie bar to.

Once I am able to do so, I will let everyone know who this north Texas, Lake Texoma, rigger is. Until then, dont trust anyone with the initials of LD and is working at the largest Marina at lake Texoma. Just saying.

Myself with the help of friends finished most of what LD would not finish. Now in stark contrast, the second rigger, from Plano Marine at Highport, was able to finish everything we could not with 2 days of effort. That is why it is now back in the water. LD may have taken my money, but it was someone else who finished the work, and got it done. Kudos to those at Plano Marine that do not have the initials of LD. You can trust Greg Ray at Plano Marine, and i wholeheartedly endorse his customer service and the work ethic of his team that do not have the stated initials.

Once I get the break-in cycles completed, I will post results. But for now: A pair of matched Skip White 572s. At 4800RMP 655 hp 702 tq. The math says 54-58mph with a 21p 4 blade, but this is just a place to start. The drives are a bravo XZ, with 1.5 ratio. The boat weighs just a hair below 18,000 lbs. This is an 47' Wellcraft Excalibur that runs really fast for a large cruiser. The old engines(8.1 425hp mags) were able to push the hull to 48mph when new. When I replaced them, the engines could only muster 35mph at 3800 rpm(wot).

Cheers,

-j

Any update on the Skip White engines?

Where's the post about upgrading the Bravo drives to handle 700 ft lbs in a 18k boat?? Should be coming up i would think....

Gmc blowers
 

Ok I’m old and been around the lake too many times LOL. back to alcohol FUNNY CARS

way back when the NHRA dropped top gas drawers we switched to the new bb/ alcohol funny cars. We built a hole hole new car engine transmission . Not many had run well in our area and I really did not have good contact other than local top fuel guys. We got a lot of used parts and I did a lot of machine work for them . I was also going to engineering school so busy schedual. We had a brand new 8-7- blower and the first night out had low et and high mph ofvthe circuit we had joined won the event That was the beginning of a 5?year run of weekly and twice a week runs losing onyb1 round due to breakage and money in the bank at the end of the seasons. We had reached about the limit of the 87-1 and began looking at the new 10-71 that hat had just come out. A local machine shop that did what we didn’t have equipment for got talking one day about building a 10 -71 or of a couple blowers by cutting extension rotors making a longer through shaft for the rotors and machining for a support bearing in the joint to help prevent rotor flex I was so busy with school an I had just passed my tool maker certification exam so I was really out of time. So to get to my real question “ how were the first of the longer blowers made ? I was well aware that cnc was the wave ofvthe future I was deep into advanced cad by that time but the shop at school onl had a primitive cnc lathe and an old black perforated tape cnc mil I learned to program both as the cam programs were just coming out. I did design a longer high helix rotor but I no easy way to make them except send them out. This was very expensive back then. So was the idea of cutting rotors splicing them with longer through shafts and making very special end plates something that was done as a stop gap deal until machining could catch up?” Our go to shop never finished our proto type. I was aWw 2 buff then too so I studied a lot of how the big fighter and bomber engines were supercharged. The Germans did a huge amount of boost and methanol research as they had very poor gas with refineries bombed to bits . The USA came up with 150 octane gas plus adding water alcohol to it so boosts were pretty substantial in these big engines multi speed and compounded supercharging was used for war emergency power. I used a lot of this information to set up our first race engine and it worked eventually we had to over drive the blower to the point where it lost efficiency by some careful pressure measurements I also found the triangular opening helped distribute the boost better other found this too on the west coast so it became retry standard. There were no onboard computers back then and just creating a timing system to operate the air shifted trans was a project it did work and followed the theory o getting max boost as fast as possible for first an second gear then really lean it bourbon the top end as there was not much air flow. We had 3 high speed lean outs plus a pump sizer circuit. Even reading spark plugs could creat a healthy debate we only nicked one piston during this time that one I fixed with a new ring and good honing on the cylinder So over all it was a good run as we say in sports. But back to my main question . We’re the new longer blower hi Breda as I noted or were the rotor dimly cnc machines from billits with fancy end plates ? We were all set to get a new 10-71 or larger but lives changed and arinecengines soni hsd mwe left the race game.to main rain our lives and kids . As for boats I got the 34 foot cruiser with twin 454 engines so I had my twin. My dog and I lived on throubtwo minnesota winters down on the mission river. Cold an icy. You have to be hard core to live on the misss. In the winter. I was a swimmer from jr h school through two years if college soI knew my way around water and cold water training both in military and college life saving my dog fell in 40 degree water andvthectrainingvreally paid off struggling victim rescue is ver dangerous by itself but cold water rescue is worse. My neighbor across the pier fell in abou two days after my dog andvibhadcto go in and help him try swimming with full winter clothing on in the summer some time addin icy wart I’d extremely dangerous once you are out there is still plenty of danger from the cold every body survived ok but I was thankful I had some idea of what to do.

. I’m a super charger guy so I’d spend probably more on a blower than anyting else if you have a good engine with about 9:1?or less I’d even skip the cam cams really can kill the bottom end if not chosen correctly and not operated in optimum range. Blowers can easily make up for this marine gas here is 91-93 octane an non oxy so very littl moisture problem you still get moisture in the tank vents especially at nigh when the due comes out a spring tank pump out or drain is best and always carry double the amount of filters youbhave fix thing so you can change filter quickly even in a down pour or rough water carry at least two filter tools one always seems to end up in the bilge Blower can have doe really nice I water cooled intercoolers they are speedy but boat stuff is anyways there are some really nice water alcohol injectors that aren’t too expensive I made my own for my street rods In my mind these are necessity on super charged engines just be mindful of the tanks on them I exclusively use Holley or quick fuel carbs an have air fuel ratio gages on them the onl thing you need to be carefull of in stalling these is putting the O 2 sensor well above any water going into the exhaust system the sensors will fail if they get wet. But they are a dead sure way to make carb tuning perfect a hand full of carb jets and destructors is all you need. Approved flame arrestors be sure all you under deck safety equipment is in good order many older boats have halon fire systems that can no longer be refilled or serviced so check this too . There was a big fire down on the marina last year caused by not airing out the bilges before starting engines I YHINK 5 boats were damaged just up the line from me . I had a stroke so I’m not supposed to drive or go boating any more. At least I got a good deal selling my boat quickly.

Thanks for the feedback, I did go with the Skip White 572s, with a cam for low and mid-range. 625hp at 4500 and 700tq at same. Target rpm is 4500, cruise range is 3200-4000, which is 356-516hp; 604-676tq across that range. Ran great with b3s, but as many predicted, tore them up a bit. putting finishing touched on Arnesons surface drives. Looking for trials around July 4th. Math says best case 70mph, I predict about 60ish. With the sock b3, and 496s, 47mph was the best I ever got. With the 572s (detuned a bit on timing), 57mph at 5100 rpm. I kept the rev limiter at 5100, and the timing at 31 deg. Compression in 9.1:1, but big heads and a cam for big low end makes it run great even at lower RPMs. The dyno runs for the 668 hp numbers was at 34 deg on 91 pump. Skip did run race gas at 36 deg, and got a bit more, but Im going to run 91 octane, and probably 32-34 on timing.

that sounds pretty good I do like big engines too. Be sure to keep an eye on oil pressure and it would not hurt to install temp gages My old silverton cruiser had both and water cooled oil coolers . Two more things to service. LOL