Wow! I am not sure there is ANY room left to squeeze any more in this engine compartment. I have read articles about the challenges of changing impellers and plugs and so forth. My buddy has a 29 Baja Outlaw and I thought his was tight but this looks even smaller.

Has anyone had to pull a 496 out of this compartment yet? Stupid question I guess but do they put these motors in AFTER they put on the top of the mold! Can you lay over the top of the motors and get to all of the bolts and steering and such? If ANYONE has those types of photos, that would be awesome!!!!

(sorry for all the questions but this is quite a big jump from the boat I am in with a single 496!).

I had an engine out of my 31,no problem. Lost a coupler and had the engine out in 2.5 hours and back in and running in 3. The engine compartment is a little tight due to the walkaround, but it's worth it!!! I've changed an impeller in the water in less than an hour. The plugs are hard to get at but possible.As far as getting at the steering or transom,just take the hatch right off.It's the 4 hinge pins and the ram bolt and it's off in 10 minutes.U will love a 31 Sonic.

This last fall was my first winterization of my 31 and I layed very carefully across the top of the engines to lube the couplers. I wasted about an hour of time thinking about removing the hatch by myself, then after reviewing all the things that could go wrong removing the hatch by myself I decided to just lay across the engines and was done in 10 minutes. I was going to just pivot the hatch forward on the actuator rod after pulling the hinge pins. I had placed tape on the inside edges of the boat where the hatch may touch in case of scratching but when I got to the last pin the hatch was definitely wanting to slide toward the back and not knowing the weight of the hatch I put the pins back in and went to plan lay across engines.

Anyway, it wasn't as bad as it first appeared.

I have had a 502 out in about 45 minutes.

Believe it or not once you figure out HOW to do something it is not as bad as your mind makes it out to be. Patience is definitely needed.