My Engine Saga any advice would be helpfull
 

I want to first apologize because this may turn out to be a novel. :blahblah: I own a Beautiful 2005 baja 245. Ill Post Pictures(once i figure out how). Lets start by the cause: Three years ago i was out of town and didnt get back to my boat in time to winterize. So as you all know i found a cracked block. Needless to say it was a 6.2 and it was everything it could do to push my boat 55 mph. I wasnt to upset. I looked at it as an opportunity to get good power in my boat. i quickly realized what engines cost. So I looked on oso and bought what was said to be a completely refreashed 509 with all forged internals, M1 Procharger with intercooler, completely programmed, only 5 psi at WOT, "reliable" lol. Bought my engine from Cat House Marine. They are complete THEIVES. Paid $14,500. they did a half as* install and i had my guys finish rigging it in atlanta where i live.
I start my boat get running and 10 minutes later my # 6 piston disinigrated. so my local shop took petty on me and got me a 525 long block from merc racing. i used my 502 efi system for the intake and fuel injection. I bought new stainless marine exhaust. and then sent my engine to Twister Motor(Gary Grimes) to have it dinoed and tuned. without super charger 498 hp. with supercharger 702 hp.
I have dino sheets if any one is interested. Everything looked great. Gary and his guys then tuned the engine while it was in the boat running and found that i had a waterpressure issue. They salved this by putting in a constant flow purge valve of some kind. It took care of that issue. They ran my boat at lake lanier and got it to 98 mph and it was still going faster. He said congratulations you have a dangerous boat. he suggested external steering at this point. Anyways after all of that was and done i got my boat back. 2 weeks ago i had about 4 hours on my new engine not including dino and testing time and some how i have lost compression on all the cylinders on the starboard side. We pulled the heads and found that the # 3 piston appears to have run lean. It melted side of the piston and caused some bottom end issues. to be Determined. We had sent off fuel injectors to have flowed and they came back great. all of the cylinders appear to be burning properly. #3 looked washed but that exhaust port looked fine. New 525 longblock is on its way once again.

Questions is what are we missing. i cant afford for this to happen again:lolhit: any help would be great. i have pics of boat and engines. i can email them to you if that helps
thanks.

Just taking a guess, the stock fuel line and pickup from tank could handle the 6.2 fuel needs but can't with the new engine

Replaced with much larger lines from pick up all the way to engine.

Also Added a new fuel pressure gage just to make sure we didnt have a fuel issue. if anything we are a little rich

fixx
 

you need to do a more finer tune on the dyno and with egt's in each cylinder along with afr o2's in each header..

sounds like they have it running on its ragged edge..i would detune it a bit like take a pound of boost away to make it more reliable..

it was tuned with o2s and eg's. i think it has a three psi pulley for the super charger but at 5400 rpm on the dino it had a boost pressure of 5psi. i have all of the dino specs but as far as the guys a twister motor were concerned egs were great. maybe it was them triing to cover there butts!!

fixx
 

you mentioned they retuned the engine in the boat after they dynoed it..unless they used their own exhaust in the boat with a egt at each exhaust valve or they just used afr readings in the boat?? your injectors are at their max unless you installed bigger ones..this could also be the issue....

its wierd that it was just #3..

#3 i know it has every one stumped. they used their exhaust when taking the readings. gary mentioned that it could be the Injector driver in the computer.??

You said the lines and such were replaced from the pickup. Was the pickup itself replaced? Every Baja I have ever seen has a small plastic pickup in the tank. It has a square 90* fitting on top. An adapter fitting screws into the square 90* fitting. When the adapter fitting goes in, it ends up blocking half of the already small hole in the pickup. Has the filter head been replaced with a larger one? Is the fuel being returned to the tank? If not, it can/will cause aeration if it is being returned to the inlet side of the pump, especially with a larger pump.

Here is a pic of a fuel pickup that came out of a Baja. Next to it is one that we make to replace the small plastic ones. Does yours look like this? Were ya'll watching the fuel pressure gauge while running hard? I suspect you have a fuel delivery problem.
Eddie

I have never seen an intermittent injector driver in a Mefi. I have seen one or two fail, but they didn't work at all.

What injectors do you have in it now?
Eddie

I know you don't want to hear this , but get rid of the Pro Charger. It will be much more reliable, but not nearly as fast. I know there are lots of guys running them with sucess, but a blown motor goes through a lot of stress. I feel your pain. High performance engines and drives are expensive.

not sure of injector size or if the pick up was replaced. i would hope so between tunning and first 525 im about 30k into it not including the new 525 lol. all tunning and rigging was done by gary grimes at twister motor who from my understanding built the 900hp motor for merc and is also on the 1350 team. just to give you a back ground on the guys working on it.

should i just for go the blower?
Where in Tn are You? i will gladly bring it to you. ive read nothing but good reviews. i just need it to run with out costing me 20k everey 4 hours

as far as the lines are concerned i believe they are 1/2 or 3/4 inch. they are metal now aswell

Thanks reved up. i agree i thought i could have both with low boost but i guess not.

Sorry about your troubles, but..........the engine being blown up probably saved your life. That boat should never be powered with 700+hp and turned into a 100mph boat.

i agree, but 100 mph boat wasnt my goal. my Porsche will top out at bout 189 but ill never see that.
i wanted a 75 to 80 mph boat without having to strain and run wot all the time. that being said im worried about selling to someone who might not be as reserved.

Im in Nashville. I would love to fix it for you and have no doubt that we can make it work. No offense, but 700 hp is not exactly rocket science. Unfortunately, I couldn't do it any time in the immediate future. We are overbooked as it is. I have more than I can handle at the moment. It would be at least a month before I could even look at it.

You mentioned that you have all metal fuel lines? Are they SS braided hose, aluminum or steel tubing? IF they are hard tubing (either alum or steel), they could be contributing to the problem. You could be having at least a partial vapor lock where the fuel is starting to boil in the lines and become aerated.

First, have a look at the pickup and filter head. They need to be large enough. You also should have the fuel returning to the tank. Make sure those items are correct first, or you won't keep any of them together. Give me a shout if I can help. Good luck. I would be glad to look at it if you can wait a little while.
Eddie

They are deffinitley hard tubing not ss braided hose. Could that really be my problem? could i make the supercharger reliable?
There is a return going back to the tank

A little off topic but what was the pitch of the prop and how fast was it turning when you hit 98 mph.....was that on gps ?

fixx
 

and on another note stay away from oxygenated fuels like shell 93,,it will also cause you a ton of problems..

Yes that could be part of the problem. And yes, you can absolutely make a supercharged engine as reliable as an NA engine. Us, along with quite a few builders out there, do it on a daily basis.
Eddie

Eddie, Is that a -12 - 1/2 npt or -10 - 3/8 npt?

That one is 3/8 npt x #10 with the 3/8" side bored out to the same size as the #10. I use a SS fitting since it can safely be bored larger without risk of breaking like an aluminum fitting could.
Eddie

5 psi of boost on a 509 or 502 at 700 hp is believable, 98 honest mph with a 245 AND STILL GOING FASTER with that hp, umh, not going to happen BUT, that is neither here nor there. It would take a 32 pitch turning about 6000 to do it, ask me how I know.
Eric, yes, set up right your boat should last you at least 100 hr between rebuilds, probably 3 or 4 times that at 4 psi of boost. Something is definately wrong, afr gauge on the motor in the boat along with a accurate fuel press gage will tell you everything. What size injectors are you using, Smitty