Looking at a 2008 fountain with 496 ho with 400 hours. Seems high the hours. Whats the life expectancy of these motors?

If well maintained, they have been known to go over 1000 hours. Wouldnt necessarily recommend that, but..........

Have RPM history checked - this will tell you how hard the engines have been run.

1000+

if the meter report came back good as well as compression, I wouldn't even think twice on those hours.....good to go!

No problem if they remain stock and they didnt run the crap out of them.

According to my builder, my 400 hour 496 MAG looked like new inside apart from the bent connecting rod due to reversion. After the rebuild, including .030 overbore with new forged rods and pistons, the boat runs the exact same speed as it did before. Nothing was gained over a fresh, slightly larger cubic inch engine over stock with 400 hours.

400 hours is considered low hours for stock 496s

If you did forged rods and pistons its prepared to be thrashed. Should have thrown in the Raylar cam or similar. Its bulletproof now you fixed the weak link.

Yes, I know. I spoke with Raylar (Larry) before the engine was rebuilt (we ended up not going with any Raylar parts) and wasn't too thrilled with bumping up fuel pressure with his cam. Then contacted an OSO member selling HO cams but in the end decided to leave it be. It is a shame that these aren't turning more RPM or under boost!

Here we go with shoulda coulda woulda.

The stock springs are good with that cam but are essentially the same as the spring in a ball point pen. Otherwise, you do have a good base motor right now. You can easily do new heads or a cam later.

You can have the ecu reflashed and increase the rpm and fuel pressure. Whipple has a stock program for Raylars cam. No need to increase fuel pressure. But again, I wouldnt with those springs. Your set up right now is basically a tank if you leave it alone. If you can live with yourself! LOL