Do you have any pix or a link to your interior. Killer looking graphix. 124 mph my guess. Are thoes Lumitec led's on back of transom.

Here is couple of pictures. The lights are SMX150's from Lumishore. They are color change and have a controller for 6 colors, 3 levels of brightness and can rotate colors. They are very bright.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]535712[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]535713[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]535714[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]535715[/ATTACH]

Engines have totally different sound. They are definitely quieter without the compressor noise from idle to 2000rpm. After that both are about the same. Just no chatter. Have not had them above 3500rpm yet. Regarding the smoke too early to tell. Running double oil for breakin and cheap plugs until out of break in.
Will let you know how it works out!

Interesting break-in RPM, Ron. Mercury's scheduled break-in on a 300XS is 3,500 to 5,500 RPM (3/4 throttle), varying the RPM's every few minutes, no idle, for the first 3.5 hours.

I hear ya but all of us do not live on a lake!!! LOL.
It takes me 15min to get to the ocean from the ramp. The seas yesterday were running 2-3's. I did vary the RPM to as high as 4000 but it was getting dark.
That is why I am going to the Keys Sunday so I can run around and not worry about idle speed zones and rough seas.
Even at idle I try and get it around 1500rpm or so.

Hey I've got a lot of hours on 300Xs. You should let a professional break them in for you.:party-smiley-048:

Rings need the cycling of heat and cooling to seat, Sam and I will be glad to make the trip down there and help you out :stooges:

Ron, this is the sticker that would have been on your X's when new. This break in got me thinking I had one of these in the file.I don't think you have hurt anything just dont stay at any one rpm for more than a couple of minutes, especially idle.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]535795[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]535795[/ATTACH]

This operations manual would have come with the motors when new. Note the conflict with the break-in sticker in my prior post. (idle times)[[ATTACH=CONFIG]535796[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]535797[/ATTACH]

Flightplan
Thanks so much for the information. I would love to have a set of the original manuals. I have the service manual but it does not have anything regarding break in.
I did see that it until break in is over the ECU limits the motor to max rpm of 5800. I have read some of the guys say it takes about 15hrs to be able to get full throttle rpm. Does your manual say anything about that?
I appreciate you sharing this.
Hope to maybe go out tomorrow if the weather is good.

I think I have those from one of mine. I'll send it to you when I get out of the duck woods

When the 280's first came out I believe they were the first Mercury Racing outboards to have the break-in programming. It was interesting because if the engines weren't loaded enough the clock would not count down. Some people would have twenty to thirty hours on the engine and it wouldn't reach full rpm and customer would insist there was something wrong with the engines. This was a big problem on cats. Later learned to run really tall props, twin engine boat running on a single engine at a time, or towing another boat, during break in.
The programming was set not to start counting down until a minimum rpm and vacuum. The engines had to have a good load on them!
Your fresh rebuilds two points. You want to break them in with a good load on them, varying rpm and not going over 5500 rpm. Do it for a minimum of three hours. The long idling your talking about not only is bad but should not count at all on your break in times. Unless someone reprogrammed the break-in mode on your ECU's the ECU is going to be running regular power mode. Not richer mixture and not more oil so be careful.
There is a way to put the ECU's back into break-in mode with a DDT or the newer computer analyzers and if you have one or access to one it's highly recommended to do that.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]535810[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]535811[/ATTACH]

Couldn't find anything else in the Operations Manual regarding what the timeframe or maximum RPM would be in Guardian Mode, other than what I posted.

My service manual has almost nothing that will help you, but this is the only page referring to any break-in. Does have some other interesting limits for Guardian.

Good post Onetime.

Ron, please tell us you reset the clock to break-in/ Guardian mode with your DDT

Absolutly. We had a computer on the them during start up. Bled the oil pump, He had the pump run for extra oil on initial start up. Also the motors were put in breakin mode which also is showing on my smartcraft system.
I have put my big props on too.
Thanks for the additional input. I have heard some of the same things Onetime has posted but not sure if that type of break in applies to the 300x.
I know the 300xs did not have that type of programming.

Cant wait to hear the good news about performance gains.

If you just hate the X's I might have a place to hang one of them, and it will be in good company.:drink:

Good Luck out there today.

With my 260s' I took 10+ hours ,varying rpm to break them in. On the other hand I have watched a friend window his block before even getting on plane. Just take your time, pun intended, and enjoy being on the water. I let a friend/engine builder run my 260s after one rebuild and he blew the motor the first time he pinned the throttles pushing it to hard. If a builder tells me he doesn't believe in a break-in period he doesn't know anything about expansion of metals in my opinion. Enjoy Ron.

Put another 3hrs on them today. Seas 2' with occasional 3' swell. Break in mode now clear according to Smartcraft displays. Still did not pin it as I want to put more time on them. I will say this thus far. They are definitely a step above my 300xs's. Fuel mileage dropped from 2mpg to 1.7mpg running in 3500-4500 rpm band.
Below is screen shot of today's run. I was 30" Dewald cleavers.

Also here are some videos taken from my phone. Will be using Garmin VRIB next time out for sure.
Sea Conditions
http://youtu.be/s3OIYim64sc

Idling
http://youtu.be/-Uxcvb-V-BE

Planing off http://youtu.be/mXe8MPgB1fs

Engines sound healthy Ron! Looking forward to hearing about top end comparison

I'm really amazed that it's only .3 mpg difference from the xs engines. Everything I've done with the xs engine is drastically better fuel consumption, especially in that rpm range.

How did your "seat of the pants" dyno rate the horsepower? Could you feel it?

It is hard to tell just yet. Felt really good. with the props I was running the best the xs's can do is turn them to around 6400. The cool thing is t x's will turn them 7000. My buddies 30' Skater ran 112mph with 30's at about 6900 or so.
FP you mentioned a 3rd motor for the 32 if I decide to sell them. I have one better. Sell me both of yours and buy 2 new 400 racing 4 strokes!!!!!
Your boat would be faster......

I just looked, Mercury Racing doesn't have a 400. It's just a myth...:silenced:

It is coming. You will see it Miami. Have a lot of good intel down here. Just cannot reveal the sources....

In fact the exact opposite, Opti are far better MPG down low because its DFI . As a conventional piston port engine increases the mpg difference decreases . With fuel prices today , its the good old days again .

That's exactly my point! The XS engines are Opti's. Seeing only .3 mpg difference at that rpm range is very surprising to me. The Opti's burn way less fuel in that rpm range. Or am I missing something in the way I read the post or am I saying it wrong?

Sorry didn't follow what you're saying KK32, other than what you said about fuel prices, I just hope they're still here when I get to start boating again. It's appeared to me that the biggest difference in MPG between the X's and XS's was in the mid range but once you open them up they both burn if I remember correctly like 34 for the XS and 38 GPH for the X's which isn't that far off. Do those numbers sound right to others? If so maybe the X's really are the preferable motor if they make more power at a reasonable increase in fuel burn. Unless you've got three like some of us :( LOL

DR, I'm also closely following you on this one, I went from twin xs on teh last boat to trip X's on the 32 Skater, I didn't get much time on the Skater last year before the season ended but am loking forward to this coming season. I'm in teh process of going through all three motors and redoing the dash and a bunch of the rigging, anything I should look out for? Also curious is you had any issues with getting the X's working with the vessel views? I ask becasue I'm planning an all glass dash but using a gateway to two Garmin units, at least that's the plan for now...

Idle , 300xs sips fuel like a jew , under 4 k xs is king however the closer you get to WOT yes the DFI ( opti ) will get better MPG than efi but the difference to us go fast guys not big deal .Don't get me wrong I would grab pair 300 xs in a second however I don't have the money and I buy 225-250 cheap and turn them into 300x with exhaust chest mods , intake , ecu .

MLB send me a pm with your number and I would be happy to share what I found with my engines and have learned thus far. I am now sort of an expert on the smartcraft conversion and if you have the right Motorola computer and harness it will work. It might need a software update though.

Regarding fuel mileage it is still early and I will have more concrete data soon. I did however measure the fuel used in the tanks with my dipstick and it matched what the computer said was used. Average was 1.7mpg. Keep in mind that this for the day. Based on distance covered mileage wise I am inclined to say for the speeds we were going fuel usage was about 20-25% more while in break in.

Keep good notes Ron. Others (like maybe me) may need the info on how to make the X's communicate with vessel view. My boat came with two uninstalled Smart craft "gauges" that will install in place of the tachs. Not sold on the looks just yet.

Just wonder if anyone has tried an ipad for a glass dash GPS/plotter. Seems to me like it would be ideal for the application with a 4g/lte modem. Inland and coastal of course. Anyone tried it?

Useless in the sun. Plus if the IPAD gets hot enough it will turn black.

I used an iPad for a bit. Ron is right. It's useless in the sun.

Absolutely correct. Used one in my airplane and could angle it to see a little better in the sun. Airplane is a low wing with a big clear canopy so lots of light. When it overheats forget about it, just blacks out saying it's to hot. Always at the worst time also!

Thanks guys. I should have known that. I've had my iPhone black out many times like you have described.

FP give me a call when your ready to rerig that thing. I can set up you up with something to your liking!

There's no way those X motors are only burning slightly more fuel than the XSs. I've owned 28s w/ 2.5s, 3.0s and 3.2s and can guarantee you that the 3.2s burn 60-70% of what the 2.5s and 3.0s do (6k cruise w/ 2.5s, 5k cruise w/ 3.0s/3.2s). My roundtrip runs out to SF and back to my house are just over 200 miles and the 2.5s and 3.0s wouldn't make it on a set of full tanks (very close though). I do the same run with my 3.2s and I have around 50 gallons left when I get home. I do agree that at WOT, they don't get a lot better mileage than the 2.5s/3.0s, but at cruise up to 5k or so, they do WAY better on fuel. There's no doubt that they'll never truly match the performance of the 300X motors, but they definitely are the most economical way to go decently fast that I've found. Please hurry up and get those X motors broke in/dialed in so we can see some real world #s on the difference between the two motors! I'm still amazed you went through all this trouble Ron, but I'm also really looking forward to your results! Good luck with it!

I don't have hard numbers on 300X vs 300Xs but I'm amazed at how long fuel last with the 300XS. When I took the 28' to LOTO for the weekend I was always refueling. With the 308 larger tanks and 300 XSs we covered same runs and never refueled.

I agree with you guys that the xs is more fuel efficient. I will eventually have enough data to come to my conclusion. I too have made long runs for a day and know how much fuel I used. Will be doing much of the same with these motors too.

Dale it was more for fun than anything else. I like a challange and wanted to do something different. Just like your 15" xs motors. I look forward to the results as well. Just need to find time to go boating. Unlike you guys that live on a lake or river the weather down here does not always cooperate and couple that with owning a business it equals no time for boating LOL!!!