Hello,

I have a o4 496 HO. I was running it on the hose yesterday to warm the engine for a oil change. I noticed that there was more water flowing out of the drivers side then the passenger side. This happened with the exhaust open or closed. Is this normal or something I should look into?

Thank you,

Lou

Mine is like that on the hose too. Mine is relatively even once in the water.

The hose really insnt very much water. If you had strainers you would see that it is the very minimum required. At only 1500 rpm it is practically sucking it out of the hose.

Are you running through muffs attached to the outdrive or via a fresh water flush connection that flows into the SWP?
If running with muffs, do you have any water not going into the drive? (spraying or dripping?)
If running with muffs, are you certain you do not have any corrosion in the drive, transom assembly, or intake hose?
If you have a dual water pickups, are you taping off the pickups not covered by the muffs?
How old is/how many hours on... your impeller? Do you have a water pressure gauge?

It's not unusual for one side to be stronger than the other, but I'd definitely look at the impeller if you don't have a water pressure gauge; and if you are going to look at the impeller, you might as well replace it. I run the biggest hose I can find from my house well, with as few connectors/restrictions in the hose as possible. The last thing you want to do is starve the SWP for water pressure. On my 496HOs, I've got around 4-5 lbs of water pressure on my mechanical gauge running on the hose, hose injecting right before the SWP. SmartCraft reads about 3-4 lbs. of water pressure; all readings at idle. Water pressure will also increases with RPM up to about 10 lbs. on the hose. The flow is even from both pipes once within 10-20 seconds of startup; usually a little stronger on starboard side first.

Driver/passenger side does not really tell us anything since your helm could be on either side or center of your particular boat.

Don't overthink it .It is normal when running on a typical garden hose .Just not enough water supply.

I had the same thing with mine on my 502. I was able to just pinch the hose running to the exhaust manifold and let then let it go. I did this 4-5 times and it cleared what ever was blocking it with the sudden "burst" of water.

Less flow on the port side is normal, while on the hose anyway. My 525 is the same way. When I had a 496HO and would scan on the engine, the port exhaust temp was always 10-20* higher than the stbd side.