Got some peel-n-stick neoprene rubber, measured it, measured the cooler, did the math, turned and bored a tube, parted off two rings, split them, had the welding done, painted, applied the rubber, and clamped it all together. We’ll sort out orientation and hose clamps at assembly. For right now, I’m allowing the adhesive backing fully bond.

Thanks. Brad.

Any new progress. Have you had a chance to fire up the engine yet.

Topshelf,

Was just up to the dealership last night. Builder has had some eye issues (metal in the eye from grinding on his run stand), so he's recruited some help for rewiring the HP harness. Turns out, the harness was originally for a distributor engine, so it had no pin-outs for the ignition coils, in addition to the LS connections that had to be grafted. As of this morning, the harness is complete, short of wrapping it in cable webbing. He is going to double check all the connections for routing verifications and continuity and get it wrapped. We still need to finalize the raw water plumbing, since we replaced the oil cooler with a much larger unit, elimination of the CoolFuel module and we repurposed the old oil cooler as the PS cooler. I will also have to have a new PS line fabbed to reach the new location of the cooler. Pretty much the same raw water hose path, it's just that the connections have moved. At that point, it should be ready to drop it into the boat. It's looking like the run stand is going to take longer than he anticipated, so we are likely forgoing a test fire on the stand; just dropping it in the boat and going for it. After that, I will need to finalize fuel and oil plumbing, which should be pretty easy. I will also have to fab the rest of the exhaust, with the removal of the SilentChoice, extension of the elbows and the addition of the angled elbow risers. It's looking like initial fire up won't be for another couple weeks, as my on-call welder is only available Fridays and weekends. Once that is done, I've got a batch of PennGrade break in oil to go in it and we should be ready to fire it up.

Thanks. Brad.

I havent kept up with this whole thread at all but one quick piece of advice-

Spend the $1000ish bucks and bring it to a dyno. You'll get your base cal done and most importantly you wont have to take it out of the boat for something simple. **** happens sometimes. Rear main leak? Way easier to drop the pan on an engine stand than take the motor back out of the boat. I understand its easy for me to say this having our dyno in house, but ive never ever ever regretted running something before an install. We even dyno valve jobs. All it takes is one small hiccup (again, **** happens) and you're pulling the engine back out. A lifter galley plug could have a hairline crack in it, invisible to the eye, but when oil starts leaking out of the bell housing (been there), you'll be glad it happened on the dyno. Etc, etc, etc. Relying on closed loop tuning is not the hot ticket. Its a great tool to get you close, but that's about it. It will not do idle tuning worth a damn either. Ittl be way worth it getting the idle tuning done on the dyno. The first time it stalls and you whack the dock you'll be gutted my friend.
Your time is valuable. $1000 bucks in the big scheme of things with these boats isn't much. The 12 hours you'll spend (if there's an issue, and I hope there isnt) taking the engine back out and putting it back in has to be worth more than $1000.

Especially the way everything is mounted in there. Looks super clean but going to be a pain to get out.

I will have to agree with Saris on this one. It's not liked you pulled the motor and did some minor stuff.

Johnny,

Heard. 100%. And it's been on my mind for various reasons. The shop that did the machine work gets $850 (I think) for a dyno session. While I struggle with that cost, I also struggle with the idea of finding an issue the hard way. If nothing else, the prospect of tuning it on the water seems cumbersome, to say the least. Near as I can guess, with scheduling and such, we'll be all summer getting it dialed in, and that holds absolutely zero appeal to me (or the CFO). I'm going to see the builder again today, and we'll discuss. He wasn't opposed to the idea when we talked about it several moons ago. I'm sure he won't mind being, for the most part, "off the hook" once it's in the boat. The idea of having a full 360° line of sight of the entire engine, top and bottom, for running inspection doesn't suck, either.

My only real question is in regard to the break-in process. I would assume one would do the vast majority of this before bringing the engine to the dyno. Or would you do the break-n on the dyno, under load? I can see reasoning in both directions. I'm reading/hearing of break-in taking as much as 10hrs of run time or more. This doesn't sound compatible with dyno tuning a fresh rebuild. Just wanting to have my head around it.

Thanks. Brad.

MadFlavors,

The engine should be WAY easier to get back in (and back out, should the need arise) than it was getting it out initially. The main obstruction we encountered was the SilentChoice wye pipe. Not that it's gone, we should have considerably more room to work.

Thanks. Brad.

Johnny, others,

Something else... What to do with the PS pump.... It's currently high and dry. Do we just leave it that way? Connect the two hose and just let it circulate fluid?

Thanks. Brad.

Break in on the dyno under load. Its a 30 min process at best unless you're using some really funky ring. The engine will still break in a little bit after that, but in 30min the rings will be more than seated, blow by should be minimal. She'll be as broken in as shes gonna get with 1-2 hours of real run time. Another plus to the dyno- some people re-torque heads after a heat cycle. Discuss with your builder. WAY easier not in the boat.
You will still need to touch up the cal in the boat...but you'll be 80% there with what you do on the dyno.