need a little 496 winterization help. kinda, and another question.
 

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this is a new to me boat. 2007 Checkmate Convincor 270 496 mag. I have changed the oil, and fuel filter added sea foam to the filter housing. added stabil to the fuel tank. i will be changing the gear oil when i bring it back out. prior to putting it away i flushed with fresh water. then i used the air pump and purged the water from the system. i pulled the blue plug on the port side not a drop came out, (tried to get to the starboard side but it is directly behind the fuel filter housing). am i missing anything? is there anything else that i should do? the garage will not get colder than 38-40 degrees.

also is there any way to make this thing any louder? it is quieter than my old 350 mag.

as long as the building the boat is stored in will never go below freezing you have nothing to worry about,i keep one of my boats in my shop and it never gets below 40,my cruiser is at a storage facility that i pay quite a bit for my spot but it also is kept above 32 deg.i asked the building owner who would cover repair cost if anything were to freeze,he said he would but not to worry because he has an emergency gen set if power goes out and if the gas was off for some reason he has portable heaters to bring in.i hope i never need to find out if all this is true.

yup no chance it will get below freezing. even if we loose power there are kerosene heaters in the garage that we use. even with as cold as it was last winter it never got below 37 degrees in there.

any ideas on the making the exhaust any louder? not sure how my small block was louder than my new big block? the 496 is all new to me.

maybe chitcan the factory exhaust and install some sort of high performance system.

Pull the turbulators out from between the risers and the manifolds if you are in fresh water, that will add just a bit more bark. If you aren't running silent choice you can add some length to the riser pipe by welding 3" stainless extensions on. I just installed a Dana exhaust system and that is A LOT louder than the stock setup.

i will look into pulling the turbulators. i'm in brackish water. but the boat stays in high and dry storage never in the water and is flushed every time i take it back out. no silent choice here. just 4 inch angle cut with flappers inside.

Matt is right on in his post. I pulled the turbulators and welded 12" stainless extensions onto the stock risers. The end of the extensions are right at 1" away from the transom exhaust tips. This makes it significantly louder and deeper sounding. Also mixes the water in further downstream which is a good thing. The extensions must be welded at the correct angle to not touch the exhaust hose. The hose will melt and create quite a mess if the extensions are touching. By far this is the cheapest and easiest way to add sound and slight performance. Dyno results of removing the turbulators have shown 8-10hp and 25-30 ft lb gains thru the midrange.

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that looks awesome. ill pull the turbulators this weekend. ill have to find a local shop or someone to have it welded up. any videos of it after?

When you go and pull the drain plug from the block,and no water drains usually it is clogged with a layer of dirt.take a pick or nail something with a point on it,and clear out the drain hole.the water should come pouring out.btw nice boat

thank you i will check that. i just figured that the port for the air pump drain was about 2 inches from the blue plug that maybe it drained out there when i pumped the air into the system.