Same here. That is why we are all the band of OUTBOARD brothers!!!!!!
Keep On Sharing!

Hey guys, bring your Skaters to the Upper Keys the week / weekend of Feb 20th. it's usually very nice, warm, and a blast to make daily lunch runs. And as Ron said, "do some testing". We will test the boats during the day, and the Keys hospitality at night. Ron will be letting the 300 X loose. There are great destination runs, Worldwide Sportsman, Island Grill, Sundowners, the Fisheries, Marker 84, Gilbert's, Lora Lai, and more. Toilet Seat Cut, Snake Creek, Tavernier Creek. A great chance to learn the Keys for those that have not run down there.

good info from you guys...I have never had to break in an outboard...any info/suggestions on that from those who have would be great!

going to do our best to try and figure out why the engine blew. doing fuel flow ect... on all the parts so there is no questions or guess work! what if anything should be replace even if it's within spec???

kirk...wish we could make it. really would be nice to learn the waters in the keys...have never done any boating down there...went to the world this year with no boat (first time to that event)...really don't ever want to do that again without a boat LOL.

Wish we could make it. Great shot of your Skater by the way!

Try not to idle to much and get on plane and run between 3000 and 4500 rpm for the first hour changing rpm every few minutes. Load the motors as much as possible. Make sure your mechanic sets the computers for break in and double oil. You should see it on the vessel view if you have one. I recommend using the new Mercury racing oil if you are not already running it. After the first hour or so you can run up the RPM a little higher. Once out of break in you can go full throttle but do not hold it for extended periods of time until you have about 10hrs or so. Lastly I am sure your guy knows this as well but be sure to follow the torque specs to the tee when installing the powerheads and tightning them to the mid section. It is in the service manual. The specs around the #6 cylinder are different.
Craig one other thing I found on mine was the fitting in the mech fuel pump is plastic. If you use a hose clamp to clamp the fuel line on it and tightnen it to tight it will colapse and restrict the fuel. I changed mine to brass as a precaution.

thanks ron. I will discuss all of this with the mechanic and I am planning on being in on as much as possible. I don't want to pizz off the mechanic but I want to learn all I can...I hate paying someone to do something that I know I could do with a little more knowledge/experience.

I read about keeping the engines loaded using a larger prop...any suggestions on size? I will have to find some too. I still only have the 3 blade 32's

I've got a couple of sets of 4B 14.75x32 Mercury Cleavers you can borrow. They also come with a throttleman

LA, Attached it the Mercury break-in schedule for 300xs's with annotations from the Mercury tech guy. You want your boat to be able to achieve the 5400 RPM goal, so a larger prop may be counter productive, I my opinion. The key from the rep. was to vary the RPM's within the 4000 to 5400 range and make sure you were near operating temp before throttling up, but as little idle as possible.
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thanks again guys

and sam, thanks for the offer lol but you would more than likely have to donate the props

I'll donate the props for the breakin but you are going to have to supply the throttle man with a full ice chest.