Your right!! Your engines issues are all solved now that you have 10psi oil pressure after a 3500rpm cruise. Your merc mechanics have told you so, without even looking at the engine internally.

My suggestion to pull the engine, was to try and prevent a fellow boater from a catastrophic engine failure. I don't know about how your mechanics and engine builders work down there, but I can have one of my engines out in two hours , and torn down in a few more. Between machine shop time, reassembly and reinstall, a couple weeks at most I would be down. So not sure my suggestion(along with several others, and a few being professional engine builders) would have cost anyone a SEASON of boating.

Anyhow, best of luck with it. Come fall keep me in mind , I have a couple spare steel cranks and a couple blocks around I may be able to give you a fair deal on.

Simpleton question, but did you replace the oil filter after switching hose hoses to the correct routing?

FWIW, unless you can rebuild this engine yourself, and as long as you are not finding any metal in the filter, I'd run it this season too with that OP. If it was mine I would rebuild it for peace of mind but I can get it done is 2wks tops on my own. You won't get that kind of service paying for it to be done.

Yes, I did replace the filter and changed the oil. Mid summer I'm going to pull the oil filter, cut it open, and see if I have metal in there. The engine is coming out in October.

Good plan. Also, if your oil temps are in line (you should install that gage now) you might try rolleta 15-40 and some stp oil treatment to thicken up your oil. I've had some luck with that when I had oil pressures going away and wanted to eekk out a little more boating time.

while i understand your arguments and comparisons to your street cars and may or may not agree with the various opinions and suggestions, i think this whole thing boils down to one sentence you wrote on page one , post 1 ... here it is ....

Take off again 3500 rpm, back up to 40, but then after 1-2 minutes back down to around 20 psi.

here is a fact pure and simple and not subject to discussion... what you have written, if correct ,
indicates a serious internal problem . and thats the end of that part of this discussion.

the hows and whys wil be determined later...

the only question now is what kind of risk you are willing to assume. mild thunder ( whom i don't know ) in MY OPINION is correct. a prudent and conservative person would take it apart now before it blows up.

i didn't read the other 100 posts but maybe there are people in there that say " run it" ... if there are, they are wrong.

if you want to take the risk... go ahead. your parts . your money. you get to do what you want... but your LOGIC that you write for justifying it is ridiculous.

Take off again 3500 rpm, back up to 40, but then after 1-2 minutes back down to around 20 psi. [/B][/I]
i didn't read the other 100 posts but maybe there are people in there that say " run it" ... if there are, they are wrong.

if you want to take the risk... go ahead. your parts . your money. you get to do what you want... but your LOGIC that you write for justifying it is ridiculous.[/QUOTE]

You didn't read the recent post where I said now that the hoses are on correctly, it doesn't go down to 20 psi...The oil psi stays consistent with RPM. It stays between 35-40 psi at 3500. I'm within the 10 psi per 1000 rpm. Is it perfect...no...but 2 Merc mechanics told me that pulling the motor would be a hasty decision right now as long as I am within what the merc manual says.

i believe their is hope for you,in this case,you are spot on!

Thank you Steve. I was starting to think maybe my logic was way off.

You have been fighting low oil pressure in this boat for over 4 years now. And just this week you found reversed oil lines? Everything from overheating a motor till it shut itself down, no compression in cylinders, misadjusted valves, losing many mph off top speed, just all kinds of stuff you've posted over the past several years. It just baffles me.

You stated your corvette big block idles at 15psi. In a previous post, you stated it idled at 25psi. It's clear to me your mind is made up on providing BULL$HIT, ignoring good advice, and continuing on this journey of engine destruction that you have paved a nice road for.

You say you've offered lots of help over on iboats forums. Why you are on oso, seeking answers from guys who many have been building custom engines for many years, tells me you know the answer to your problems.....but just choose to block out what you don't wanna hear, the truth.

If I'd listened to what ive been told by some "merc mechanics" over the years, i'd have alot smaller bank account and a lot more gray hairs. My merc manual here says 35-70psi at 2000rpm. Last I checked, merc wasnt using eagle cranks, eagle rods, or bob madera cams. Your engines are no longer "mercruiser". So taking advice from a merc mechanic, may not be your end all answers. You may wanna talk to a actual ENGINE BUILDER. Oh, wait, you did, MER Performance was here, and suggested you pull the engine. Nevermind.

you can lead a horse to the water,but you cant make it drink,enough said

I think you guys are over stating the risk. What exactly is the real risk here? Death, bankrupcy, divorce, job loss? Probably none of those. This is simply a hobby for most. He risks getting towed in and having from zero to a few thousand dollars in incremental expense to fix it. The benefit is getting to boat all year if all goes well which I suspect it will given no metal in the filter. Pulling an engine and starting the pro rebuild now will take a couple months start to finish at minimum. If he pushed it maybe he could get some boating in August. Now if he was building a mars lander we might want to be a little more prudent and converative, but honestly fellas, its just a boat. It even appears that he has a second boat which takes 1/2 the percieved "risk" away... of not being able to go boating.