350????s
 

Ok, I love boating and always have. My problem is, I have alot of experience correcting small problems but have never kept a boat long enough to deal with major problems/upgrades.

Since I have a baby on the way, I do not think it is feasible to go bigger and badder at this point. I have been told that I may have a colapsed valve and am getting ready to have the heads removed and redone. I have been told that if I would like a little more power I can have the cylinders enlarged.

Is this something I shoud pursue or just have them redone to stock specs?

Thanks
James

James;

Either you or your mechanic have gotten the wrong information. There is no such thing as a collapsed valve. Possibly you are referring to a collapsed lifter. If it is a collapsed lifter, the heads don't have to come off to do the repair. You just have to pull the intake manifold and valve covers. Try to get some more information before you make any repairs. I am not sure what you mean by enlarging the cylinders. If you mean boring the block to maybe.030 over,you won't see any performance gains by adding 4 cubic inches to your 350. If you are talking about porting the cylinder heads, you may see a change in performance providing you match the rest of your motor to take advantage of the increased air flow. If your cylinder heads are stock Merc. 4 bbl. 1.94 intake valve heads like I think they are, then don't even waste your money. Those heads wont flow good numbers with just minor port work anyway.

florida gator,
I need more info on your motors. What Checkmate454mag says is right and you need to do a lot of research before you give money to the guy who told you you had a "colapsed valve". The guys on OSO are usually pretty smart. Give us more info and we can help more!!!
Have a great day and congrats on the family addition!!!

I probably mixed up what he told me. I had a local marina who I trust completely tel me my problem seems to be in the heads. I met a guya coupe of weeks later who works at a machine shop and he reffered me to the guy that does there marine work. He met me at the ramp and rode in it and pretty much told me the same thing as the marina. The biggest difference is price. I figure since the marina is goiing to send the heads to a machine shop anyway, I am avoiding part of the overhead.

My motor starts and idles fine. Once I get up around 3200 RPM, I will gethesitation and some backfiring. I have also had some problems with reversion before any of this started. I believe the reversion was bad timing from another marina who I feel caused me alot of problems, but I wont get into that.

I have not really worried about reliability. It has run fine. I was just limited to what I could do this past summer from the performance aspect.

Thanks for the advice so far.
James

Cam's f***ed up

(bad lobe):(