The key word was something, meaning design, a stainless riser that would perform better than stock and move the water mixing farther away from the exhaust port. Not saying I care for the cam.

OK, well the answer is still no. Not with a profile having a 108 LSA

Quote : OK, well the answer is still no. Not with a profile having a 108 LSA

Is this from experiance or just here say ?

i am sure you can find someone to do a cam change for way less than 1500 parts&labor if the engine is already out of the boat.if the engine has no accessories on it i do it for about half of that.

Yep...the shop agreed that the cam swap would be about 1/3 the labor if the motor was out of the boat, but that is just not feasible for me in matters of time, space, or equipment.

Just to clarify things a bit, it is NOT just the 108 LSA that is the issue. It is the 108 LSA coupled with the duration specs at .050" that is causing the issue. Merc small blocks with the GM 395 cam have a 109 LSA with no reversion issues. However their duration is really short.

BajaRooster, there are countless threads on here that discuss cam specs and reversion with respect to stock Merc manifolds like you have. If this is just a pleasure boat being used to pull skiers occasionally, I would just find a stock Merc 7.4L engine and drop that in. The Swap Shop section here on OSO (scroll down the forums below this section) often has people on there selling take-outs for a decent price.

Option two would be to keep an eye out for a low mileage L29 Vortec 454 out of a 2500 / 3500 series GM truck or Suburban from 1998 or later. You would have to swap out the intake manifold and all of the other accessories for marine pieces, and don't forget to install the correct oil bypass in the filter pad (there are also numerous threads about this here on the forum).

I would sell that engine to someone looking for a good musclecar or street rod engine - that is what it is suited for - not a boat. You are opening a can of worms swapping cams in that thing if you don't know much about what compression ratio, heads, etc., were put into it.

I don't know on your boat but it might be possible to swap cams without pulling the engine by using a hole saw to cut a hole in the firewall. If it's cored, make sure you seal it. Then make a cover plate for the aft side and the seat should cover the front. I know this would be very easy to do on my Donzi. Then you are just pulling valve covers, intake and valve train out and sliding out the cam.

He would also need room in front of the balancer to get a puller in there to pull it off. Also, on Chevy's you have to at least loosen up the front 5 or so bolts on the oil pan and pry it down enough to get the timing cover off. Then you have to hope and pray that you don't create a leak in this area when you put it all back together. I wish those two-piece timing covers weren't so expensive, or I would use one in a heartbeat.

wow,that suprises me,what merc engine comes with the gm 395 cam?