Gotta love boats....
 

So, this past weekend I came across lovemachines 24' with twin outboards for sale, I have been looking at the option of converting my 24' that is setup with a single 454 over to outboards just for the comfort of two engines...
My brother and I took a ride down from upstate NY and purchased the boat Sunday. Yesterday we put it in the water and took it out. Both engines fired up first try smoking out the rest of the dock, gotta love the two strokes. I pulled the boat out and started playing with the trim and jack plate just above idle. With the jack plate down and motors trimmed I pushed the throttles, not knowing what to expect though I was not impressed. Took forever to get on plane even playing with the throttles I could not get it to pop out of the water or even have a respectable "holeshot". Much slower then my 454/330 setup. The engines sounded fine and did not sound as though the props were cavitating just as though there was no ass to them. So I pulled to the dock picked up my brothers and we went back out, got the boat up to speed, an embarrassing 45 MPH after playing with the trim. After about 3/4 of a mile the stbd motor just revved up as though it was out of gear so I throttled back and scratched my head. I killed both motors then just started the stbd, all was fine, attemped to put in gear and there was nothing, I figuret the shift cable snapped or something along those lines so we idled back to the dock on the port and poked around, everything looked fine and the cable was moving the shift lever. tilted the motors up to spin the prop by hand and found the problem.
Whenever the motor was last serviced only three of the five bolts that hold the lower drive on were installed, the two studs just above the prop had no nuts. The nose of the mid section cracked and the lower pulled about an inch down from the mid. attached are some pics.
I am looking for a replacement mid but cannot find any with the 4"x4"x4" exhaust box at the lower ass end of the mid does anyone know what mid this is?
[IMG]http://i469.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1246368947[/IMG]
http://i469.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1246368989http://i469.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1246369072http://i469.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1246369093

That is some chitty luck! Did you take the boat for a test drive before you bought it?

Those boxes are an add on. Bob's machine sells them, but I wouldn't reccomend putting them back on. They only add some noise but offer no performance gain and also weaken the mid section because of the required drilling.

Those mids are pretty easy to find and are usually cheap (couple hundred bucks used) You just need to make sure you get one with the 3 ram integral trim not a single ram. (The single ram requires a seperately mounted trim motor where yours are intergral with the mid section.)

If you are the least biut mechanical you can switch all this stuff out yourself with simple handle tools, a cherry picker and a new set of powerhead gaskets. :drink:

Also make sure you replace all of the lock nuts on both lowers. They do wear out and loosen themselves.

Like Ziemer said, those are add ons, dont do much, but do sound cool as hell. That boat should pop right up, heck my 24 with only 10" setback, and a single tired 225 pops right up, and runs high 50's. once you get it back together do some prop testing, and play with the height of the motors, it takes time to fugure the setup out on these hulls with outboards, but once you get it, you will love it. What ROMS were you running at when you got the whopping 45??

wow that sucks what did you do with the red and white 24ft that u had?

Whoa. That has to be frustrating... I was going to buy that one if you didn't.

Thanks, I am going to look at getting a used one this weekend. It's frustrating to say the least but I hope the stbd lower had something to do with such a slow start / top speed. I also realized after the fact that the tabs are labled backwards so that was with trim tabs down, would think it would help the start but may explain the slow top end. It def threw me off when I went to hit it and it was like there was nothing. it was almost as though it responded up to 1/4 throttle but over that it didn't matter where the sticks were. I will have to play with it more when I get it together.
both engines had no problem revving up out of gear and I checked both were going into gear prior to running it up.

at 45 the rpms were just under 5k if I remember correctly. I didn't know what outboards redline but I figued if the chevy can go to 5k then the 2 strokes must.

I still have the red and white one, it is for sale but I am not pushing it. now that I have the outboards on this one I am going to replace the 330 with something along the lines of a 454 / 420 ... more of a lake cruiser for the north east.

Back in 1993 - 1994 that 24' would run right at 72-74 MPH.

JO

Beck,

Where in Upstate you located?

Same motors as I have on the Challenger..spin em 55-5800 and theyll last forever

As far as getting up on plane, try removing the vent plugs in the props. Gotta remember these 2 strokes don't have the torque like a big block and need to spin up a little bit getting on plane. A little cavitation on take-off is not a bad thing. :drink:

If you put a good set of reeds in 'em and remove the oil injection (which may have already been done) you can spin those motors into the low to mid 6k's and they'll be just fine. With 23's you're gonna have to turn em' min. 6500 to see 70.

Talk with Jo, he should be able to help you on motor height in relation to the bottom. Once you get the jackplates set, mark 'em and they really should never move once right.

Good luck. We run Tampa Bay at least a few times over the summer so maybe we'll see each other. ;)

Dave, as we talked about on the phone tonight, the sweet spot for the jack plate is about 5 inches up. Also, full throttle it to get on plane. You'll feel after a few seconds the engines start to spool up and it will jump out of the water. Don't take your time with the throttles like you do with your big block set up.

Sorry again about the bad luck with the mid section. I've never had it off and will talk to my service guy to see what he did. When I first bought it I had them go over the engines thoroughly for piece of mind. The last time it was serviced was winterization last fall. I'll call them to see what exactly what they did. It's very discouraging to know that two nuts were missing since they had those plastic lock nuts things. I never ran it with the jack plate all the way down and that's what probably made it finally fail with those missing nuts. I'll look around this area for a used mid section for ya.

How do I contact you when you're offshore?

Look at the bright side of things. You bought the boat right. Put a little into it and it ought to be a great rig.
Good luck!
Greg

Just look for one of his previous posts on the Pantera owner's forum under "for sale cheap".
I know it ends with "wildwell.com"

Exactly the way I get mine on plane, sticks to the dash smoothly, but fast, dont jam them, then back off, set the trim, back in the dash, and run it like ya stole it:grinser010:

Here's a mid section...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MERCU...ssoriesQ5fGear

Thanks, I got your email as well. Someone had mentioned that there were different trim ram setups for the mids, I'm offshore now and not near the boat, anyone give some guidance on what questions to ask to make sure it will fit?

The stock motors have the 3 ram integral trim, which I believe is what you have. These have the trim motor integrated within the clamp bracket. The high performance and offshore style mids only have a single ram and the trim pump is mounted inside the boat.

thanks for the help, I contacted the seller of the one on ebay and it looks to be what I need. Should get it in some time next week, I will be offshore for another 3 weeks but I plan to get it in as soon as I get home.
In reply to a previous post, I am in Albany, Ny

It really did take quite a bit of throttle on the twin OB boat that I had (and now Sean does). If you tried to ease into it like all the rest of the big block boats I've owned, it would never get on plane.

If you will raise the jack plate up about 3-5 inches it will come on plane easily. it actually feels liek the motors are way down on power then all of the sudden they will come into the power at take right off. the boat takes a little while to get used to it if you are coming out of a stern drive boat but once you get used to it you will like it or at least I did. If we didnt have our second child on the way I would have bought the boat back..............................

Thanks for the info, I am sure I will get use to it.....
My issue was def rolling on the throttles, I don't think I ever went past 3/4... when I did get on plane I felt the motors wake up like you guys are talking about.
Now I just need to get home and swap out that mid so I can have some fun.

Alright the mid section arrived this morning.

Looking at the mid it appears that I will need to drill and tap for the bracket on the rear that the tie bar attaches to.
Does this sound correct? or should this just bolt on.
(there is a pic on page 1)

Except for the 2 bolts on the vertical part of the bracket it looks like the bracket attaches to the powerhead studs? Those 2 bolts on the back side of the mid appear as though they would need to be drilled on a stock mid.

Thanks thats what I am thinking..... I will know more once I get back, just trying to get an idea of what all will be involved. Looks to be straight fwd but I am sure I am missing something.
2 more weeks and it should be back together, may be making some plans to get it down to the Ft Lauderdale area and possibly a run to Bimini.

That sounds like fun.

You should be able to swap over the tune plate and use the old one.

Let me know if you are coming over to Lauderdale, I will show you some of the spots, But I am not running to Bimini, unless its on your boat:drink: