Desert Stprm
 

Hey so how did all the Skaters do at Desert Storm?

Gatorone: How'd the new boat do? Is the paint the same as your other 388?

Boat ran good, just had a few supercharger issues

We had a great time.:D The boat seems to be running awesome and we hit all of our card stops. Gators rig is unreal, to say the least..........:cool-smiley-011:

Skater at havasu
 

We had a great time. Very fun run to the first card Stop. We laid back at the start in Group B then half way to the Springs we had some fun. Made all but the last stop due to Water in the Starboard Engine the result of an Intercooler burning up (Second time in two trips, same motor and new intercoolers this time). Need to find out why. Only had about 4 hours driving this boat but it sure put the fun back in boating. This boat is fun (first time owning a Cat after an Outlerlimits and Formula V's). Can't wait till the next time.

Boat Looks Good , Glad You Are Injoying It ::D

Did you install those fine mesh sea strainers specifically designed for intercoolers. They seem to fix the issues.

Curious copper or aluminum cores?

I have had lenthy discussions on this issue with Dustin
as well as Roger at PSI.
it is not the heat of the charger.
Do you have a picture?

Dont really mean to Hijack Tommaro44.
This info is good stuff.

Heres a thread on it
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...g+intercoolers

It was a great poker run. I will post the Skater pictures I have later. Good to meet some of you this year.


Andy

:cool-smiley-011:Likewise...:cool-smiley-011:

Havasu
 

Thanks AJ. Your boat looks great. What a great color scheme.

The intercoolers are the MOAC Cupernickel. Gary at GT Performance took the intercooler off yesterday and it is melted. Has to have been a Plenum Fire to melt these. They did find one spark plug wire partially broke and melted. It is possible that maybe this created a spark back up through the distributor and caused a misfire in one cyclinder while the Intake Valve was open. Seems like that would be hard to do.

They are searching for what the cause might have been.

let you know if and whenthey find the cause.

Havasu
 

No special Strainer as of now. The water for the intercooler is plumbed through the main straner for the engine.

I don't think this is the problem If the water or anything got that hot (enough to melt Cupernickel) then there would be many more pieces melted.

Get live temp gauages on the dash, and locate the probes underneath the core and you will see what type of temps you are getting. Do you melt them at idle or underway?

Havasu
 

Underway at about 3500 RPM for 5 minutes or so. Ran close to 140 and 5500 RPM earlier in the day.

I know that boat has been faster than that:party-smiley-004:

Hey sounds like you guys all had a great time. First time in a couple years that I've missed it.

Gator: Too bad about the blower issues. I saw some pics and the new boat is amazing. What's the top speed so far?

Bripar: Sorry to hear about the intercooler issue. I've seen a whipple intercooler come off of a quad rotor motor before that was a little melted (not bad though) and I think that was caused by the motor backfiring through the blower. Sounds like maybe you also have a timing issue like you said. If its an EFI quad rotor, could be some sort of glitch in the fuel injection computer too. I'm sure you'll get it all sorted out and it'll be running hard in no time. Congrats on the boat, looks like fun.

40: Sounds like your boat ran trouble free all weekend? I followed your buildup over on the HB forums so I'm glad to see that its running well after all the work you put into it...congrats.
-Tom

Yeah man, it's running great. Just one #6 drive leak but easily fixed. Had fun running with the guys in the front row as always. Just a few more things to do different on the dash, repaint the drives, repaint the trailer, and were done....:D:D

Havasu
 

Yea AJ I expected that you would comment, seems how the GPS tattle tale still shows exactly 160 MPH from when you had it. . I just need a little time to find out the limits of the boat expecially in roughed up water. I had at least 800 RPM left and it was building speed still but ran out of room. Also I want the thing to last a full weekend which as of now with this intercooler issue hasn't happened yet. How fast has your 40Gone so far? Did you build Quad Whipple Motors or just large single Whipples?

Will you be at Lake Cumberland this year for the Poker Run?

Intercoolers burn because they are on fire. This is not from a backfire, lack of water or high discharge heat. It takes over 2000deg F to melt those CuNi cores, and not a flash, such as a backfire, which subsides when the fuel is burned, but a sustained temp. This is caused from some type of engine misfire or ignition of the fuel coming of the SC. Misfires can happen for multiple reasons, bad distrubutors (cylinder fires too early or too late), lean air fuel in 1 cylinder, bad spark plug, etc. The engine misfire is the most common, it lights the fuel/air charge out of the SC, which comes out at a high pressure, concentrated area causing it to act like a blow torch. The engine must continue to run, that is key, because you can't melt the core in 1 second. Dual engine boats are the worse because you can't feel such a drop in power, but it does lose power. Other applications, with very aggressive camshafts, can have the intake valve open during some part of combustion, allowing the flame to backtrack up through the intercooler, to the air and fuel source (SC).

Thanks,
Dustin

Yes it has bud

We passed you a few times bro.....sorry to here of motor problems. My used Sterlings lasted a whopping 1hour.:party-smiley-004:

Good info thanks Dustin. I was told that if the motor backfires or has a severe misfire to shut the motor down as quickly as possible in order to kill that flame so it sounds like that advice is correct.
Thanks again
-Tom

Intercooler Melt
 

Whipple how long does it take to melt. I am trying to figure out if there is a plenum fire then why doesn't the engine just quit running ie: using all of the Air Fuel you would think that the engine would run out and quit. I guess not all of the Air Fuel is being used in the fire?

I would guess that if we had a 2000 degree or above blow torch in the plenum then wouldn't there be other damage as well to gaskets and maybe the block?

Thanks

You need not worry about other damage the intercooler leaking water into the engine will kill it.

Just a thought if you could put a electric eye in the plenum
more or less like a residental oil burner. Have maybe a two second delay that would kill spark.

If you think about it all conditions must be just right for it to occur.

Good Luck
You guys wanna see some flames come out on my Pig:D

Intercooler
 

Whipple I know it takes 2000 degress to melt Cupernickel but what about the Silver Solder that is usually used to put it all together?

How does a Spark travel backwards through the intake manifold and then through the intercooler (the melting occurred on the top of the intercooler) if the engine was running? Seems impossible. I wonder if what may have happened is that the last time I shut the engines down that somehow a misfire occured and a spark did indeed travel baclwards up into the intercooler (because the engine was not running) and started a small fire in some pooled up fuel on top of the intercooler. Then when I restarted the engine the new fuel ai mixture then started the blow torch that melted it?

Interesting!

Maybe not really a spark but a flame. Kinda like when ur setting the distributer for the first time and its slightly retarded and pop a flame apears at the top of the carb.

Unfourtanetly it is all speculation.

I just installed Pyrometers in my boat to measure exhaust gas temp. Wouldnt the Pyrometer gauge pick up the increased temp? Autometer also makes an intake temp gauge.