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Well Folks, It happened again! Another serious disaster happened 12-23-02, when I was out running down the ICW at about 70+ mph, and noticed the handling of the boat felt very sluggish and speed was dropping. I stopped my 230 SX with the 496 HO and immediately notice the swim platform was under water, so I shut down the motor and pulled open the sun pad ( engine hatch ) and bilges were very full of water!!! So, I turned on the bilge pump since the auto-on did not activate. I could not see where the water was coming from initially, so I started the motor again, only to eventually find the source was the lower water rail on the port exhaust manifold! There is a copper drain fitting, and due to the aluminum manifold there is a dissimular metal issue! This is commonly refered to as "galvanic corrosion" when two different metals are eating away eachother. The end result was disasterous from the stand point of filling the bilges with about 18" of salt water. I managed to save the boat from going under by bailing out the water with a 5 gallon bucket and calling Sea Tow on the cell phone, since the Coast Guard did not respond to the May-Day distress call I put out on the hand held VHF ( only 5 watts of power). They help me out and I got the boat on the trailer and over to a repair facility. I called my neighbor who works for Mercury Racing and he immediately told me those manifolds were on the "recall campaign" along with 3 others! I asked him if he could make a few calls about this and he did. I was then contacted by the Mercury Rep. and they are going to take care of the entire issue, due to it being there fault. Yes this incident made a real mess of my 230SX, but I am greatful they are fixing this, but wanted to alert all 496\ 8.1L owners to these recall notices. Please contact Mercruiser about the recalls, and HAVE your engine serial #'s when calling. Not all 496's will qualify, but why take the chance?

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