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 :lolhit:

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

hmmm ice chest full of beer for 4 blade merc props..hmmm you're :crazy: but deal :ernaehrung004: lol...leave the props when you go home and you can have the cooler...i'll even refill it with that miller lite cr@p LOL.

Nows your chance to get a couple of Yeti's Skate...he said you can keep the coolers... They hold lots of Lite...

:silenced:

no yeti...ice chest will be from circle k

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or I can splurge and get this if I can find it :D

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The Miller Light cooler is so 1980. This be the best I can do fo dat.....

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I do not have a Yeti Hopper yet....

couple things found wrong on the starboard engine.... some small pieces of rubber from possible fuel line issue in fuel pump.. split oil line going to oil pump (suction side I believe)...will be back over at the shop today to talk to them and verify... injectors had signs of water and you can see what the reed plate looks like here. going to pull inspection/suction return cover on tanks just to see if there is anything in them other than gas!

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oh and the air pump had been replaced on the starboard at some point in time before I got the boat.

Craig
1) The water you show is most likely from when the boat had stock cowlings on it. They suck in water like crazy. Also make sure your Mike Nass cowlings have the baffles and plenum.
2) With the oil tank being filled with pressure that also continues to the feed input of the oil injector pump if the hose was leaking you should have seen oil in lower pan and it normally drips out the back drains on the steering plate.
3) Rubber pieces from ethenal in fuel being run at some point. That stuff sucks. I would open the inspection plates and check your tanks as well. If the fuel line is rotted on the inside it could collapse and caused the motor to lean out thus causing it to blow up!
4) I would change all fuel lines from the tanks to the motor and check the ones on the motor as well.

Just my two cents! Good Luck

yea david said same about water issue.had no sign of oil anywhere...the split was right at a push-on fitting with a clamp...split did go past the clamp but not by much I was told. didn't know about the baffles and plenum in the cowl, I'll check. will be adding sensors in oil tanks so I can see the level through vessel view as well. any other recommendations?

Pulling the inspection covers off the tanks has to be a bad feeling. Hard not to feel a little ill at the thought of doing that. I hope all is well in there. I agree with DR. Cheap insurance to check all fuel and oil delivery now for the new powerheads. Best of luck man.

Do the stock X cowlings have the same problem with water ingestion?( 20'mids)

No not that I have seen thus far

After talking to David I was informed that the pic of reeds was of the port so it was just about to let loose too! Also informed that the port powerheads was not original...had been replaced!!!!

This is your chance to get it all right again. Take your time and dot the i's and cross the t's. The tanks should be fine for ethanol as it is post '06 construction. If they are not then we are all f*#£ed! I would definitely re plumb with ethanol resistant fuel lines and make sure you have a good fuel filter/ water seperator onboard.
The oil tanks under the cowls should warn you of low oil and put you in guardian. My tanks in the boat have level indicators that show up on my vessel view. I never had them before but consider them a must hav now

Craig, If you go by the book Mercury does not want external fuel/water seperators outside the motor. The mechanical fuel pumps are not very strong. The fuel filter on the pump assembly has a water sensor in the bottom. I the filter unscrews. If you cut one apart you can see what is going on with the tanks. I also heard from Pete that anything post 06 was ok but am not 100 percent convinced based on other boats with fiberglass tanks having issues.
If you are suspect in having no oil to the pump make sure they prime it. With the mercury laptop they can make it run and bleed out any air in it. Are you using the same injectors or did the powerhead come with new ones?

Yes skate I am with you on getting everything right. David suggested adding fuel strainers, along with water strainers along with replacing fuel lines. Ron I will be using my fuel injectors The new power heads did not come with them. They all checked out good.

I think what DR is saying is that if you are going to use an external filter/ separator you might have to add the old style low pressure pumps and a catch tank (with return to main tank)to feed the on board (XS) high pressure pumps. The XS fuel pump may not be strong enough to pull fuel through these add ons.

What makes you think you need additional filtration/separation?

Diamonds Fuel system 101. Thanks Da*****rcury.

http://www.diamondmarine.com/web_pag...l%20System.htm

If you use an external filter you can run an external boost pump. However you have to regulate the pressure to NO more the 4psi. Otherwise this will cause issues with the mechanical pump. In the days of the Mobil One Race boat we ran Mallory Comp race pumps with a Holley regulator.
The Opti does not require a catch tank or return line back to the tank like a 2.5 280hp like David has.
One thing I would also recommend that I did on my motors is that there is a plastic fitting in the mechanical fuel pump. If you use 3/8" fuel line and clamp it with a hose clamp you can crush it restricting the flow.
I sourced a 1/8" pipe to 3/8" brass fitting and replaced them. This way you could tighten it tight and not worry about crushing the plastic fitting.

not sold on the fuel strainers if that much more is needed. the water came from the cowl issues not the fuel tanks anyway.

I did a lot of cleaning on it before I ever put it in the water...signs of salt water, sand, etc through out the boat. not the way I treat my equipment but everyone is different so I was not TOOOOOO shocked at what has been found under the engine cowls but as with any used boat there has been some surprises some of which I would have divulged if I was selling the boat had I known about them...but I can tell you it will all be done right and not hastily thrown together! I'm looking forward to A LOT of trouble free boating with this one, just like my sunsation...turn the key and go!!!

clarification on my 308 fuel system...it has a low pressure supply pump already so adding a fuel strainer is not a problem.

Craig,
It is not necessary to have the additional filters per mercury's manual. Also the additional pump is just another problem that you do not need just my opinion. If you were running big hp I could see having it.

Can I also assume that the low pressure feed is not necessary for the X motors?

Odd this topic has come up. I spent part of the day yesterday planning and de-rigging my 300x's from the 32. The Walbro low pressure pump system and filter is still in the boat, but it doesent look like it was going to be used on the X's. I was wondering if I will be needing this system to rig a 28 with X's, or would I be better off buying a more modern low pressure system if needed.Holly regulators are pretty easy to come by.

DR, should I keep this Walbro?

well all my bay boats have had spin-on filter heads before the filters at the powerheads...granted they were/are yamahas lol.

skate does your 308 have them?

Yes it does direct from the factory that way. Also has those nifty high capacity fuel bulbs to squeeze.

yea the fuel bulbs are head scratcher huh LOL.

replaced reed blocks too...when did boating get so expensive :grinser010:

My 28 also has factory spin-on filters between the tanks and the motors.

Does it also have a low pressure pump from tank to motors? Should be prior to aux. filter.

No, no low pressure pump. I am contacting Mercury Racing thru my Mercury master tech to try to resolve this issue. I'll report back with what I find out. Once again, I am just trying to learn as much as possible about the facts regarding outboard, 300xs Skaters, not trying to ruffle any feathers.

flightplan is a trouble maker!! you gotta watch him close!:hitfan:

I meant IF it has one. Not that it SHOULD have one. Sorry if I caused a stir. DR has already said it does not need one. Since you had auxiliary filters, I was wondering if they rigged with an auxiliary pump.