New engine - maiden voyage and ...

Sorry for being so quiet -- didn't realize my voice would be missed that much

Anyway, rather disappointing past 30 days or so .... at least from a lake-time standpoint. We've been absolutely swamped with work. Between heading to the Colorado project every 3 weeks or so and trying to stay on top of things on the home front we haven't had a single day to make it to the lake.   Then there's all the paperwork ... which is one of a few reasons I haven't frequented the site lately either.   Not really an end in near future so it's looking more and more like I'll be winterizing the ol' girl before a free day arises

BTW, I like the filter - did you make that just for me??    

I ran my GT-40 up to 5200 all the time.

Update -
   Got back home early this week just in time for yet another 60 hour week followed by a bachelor party (of sorts) this morning.   However, I did get the chance to head to the lake for a few hours this afternoon to put some more hours on the engine and of course check out the tach adjustments. Tach checked out perfect so I took some mental notes on RPM vs MPH and it does indeed appear I'm right in there with the norm for what I have - 30mph was consistently reading 2850-2900 while closer to 40mph was pretty much 4000.
I still think the reman prop I was given after the accident isn't quite right - seems to vibrate just a little in the upper rpm ranges. But I'm curious if I may need/ want slightly more prop anyway. As it sits she has considerably more hole shot than before the rebuild. At half throttle I'm afraid I'd dislocate some shoulders! I haven't yet tried for WOT, but the way it climbs to the upper rpm's I wouldn't be surprised if it went well into the 5000's, which I'd rather not do.   

KENO wrote: I was thinking that if you left the boat and the keys, I could drive out and pick up a few other CCF'ers along the way and we could do a slam bang job of finishing breaking that thing in for ya'

Hmmm...   For some reason I'm envisioning .....

KENO wrote: We could bring a few assorted colors of spray paint and really make that thing pretty too

Sounds like either would do great for a single. If you ever plan to pull doubles or more, by your numbers I'd say the 422 probably will have a bit more on the bottom end, of course sacrificing the top.   I haven't made it out to the lake since everything's been fixed    and unfortunately we're heading out this weekend for an out of town job for the next 2 weeks so It'll be a while longer before I can get true numbers. But judging from my previous data and how far off the tach was, my correct numbers are probably nearly the same as yours.
I've gotta say though that the Reman prop the MC dealer gave me last winter isn't balanced nearly as well as the new one I had bought last fall and I'm also thinking that the pitch isn't quite right either. I've been thinking about buying another NEW prop and putting this one on the shelf as a back-up for just that reason.   Now that you've said you would probably have gotten the 224 instead, perhaps I'll have to reconsider getting another 422   

Tuesday we had a little hic-up at work and my son said "we should just go to the lake!"   So we did. We had two different GPS apps on two different phones to confirm the speed but I had the digital tach's set out to take and forgot about them after setting up the tower.
Though I can't confirm the accuracy of the tach yet, the GPS speedometer was confirmed to be accurate by both of those apps (again, on two separate phones) up to the top speed we had recorded which yesterday was only about 41-42.   Strangely, that speed was shown this time to be at 3900 rpm, which does kind of point to a problem with the tach. However, all of the speed/ tach #'s that I listed above up to and including the 34mph@3000 were exactly the same. Like I said, strange. If the tach registered differently this time @ 3900 you'd think the others would be different than before as well.   



Looking forward to the weekend at this point and NOT forgetting the other tachs

Open and read this link Joe. Same link as yesterday

link


It your's from when you had it out after you replaced the gauges and a bunch of other stuff.

You thought 3500 rpm and 42 mph seemed odd then

Yesterday you had 3500 rpm and 41 to 43 mph...................consistently odd or maybe oddly consistent.

Back when you "calibrated" your Faria tach against some old one you had you had them close at 1500 rpm. Have you checked your Faria at 3500 rpm against the digital stuff? I've had tach's that were accurate at low speed and got farther and farther off as the rpm's went up.

Your 4800 rpm and 42 mph was with the original tach and original prop. You were figuring the tach read high.

All this info is from your old threads

Here's your original thread where you thought the tach that came with the boat read too high

original thread

Your tach or your GPS is off is what you're missing.

The tach issue was solved last year, or so I thought. There were two different connection setting labels were affixed to the tach and of course I was setting it using the wrong one. RPM has now been verified with two different digital tachs and it is right on the money with all 3 reading virtually the same. The other 2 were induction type so they keyed off of the spark not the ECM or the boat tach wire.   Maybe I'm missing something here but I can't see how both of the other tachs could be giving the exact same false reading as the one on the dash...   

It also occurred to me that last year I had tested the new prop & shaft 2 or 3 times before the 'incident' and was coming up with much the same figures as Mark anywhere below 3000rpm or so. After that the MPH trailed off drastically, probably due to the lack of power, or the power it was supposed to have.   At 4800rpm I was only able to get to 41 or 42. Nothing in the dash has been touched since then and the only thing I did with the ECM and other wiring was replace the old breakers and relays. Only differences has been the new engine and the different refurbished prop than I had during those tests. So what am I not seeing here?

gt40KS wrote: I'm really perplexed why I would get fairly smooth idles after the engine warmed in the driveway and as soon as I make it to the lake the surging not only comes back but is the worst it's been yet. As always, I'll do some more research and checking myself, but I'm open to any suggestions here ..... edit: one last note is that on several occasions while idling, or trying to idle, I would catch a whiff of fuel. Kind of reminded me of a carb engine that is running rich.

I think like Mark said, sensor issues.

In the driveway it never sees any load, then you take it to the lake and run it under loaded conditions and one or more sensors isn't responding right or adjusted right

Yeah, I know the math Ken and I agree it's weird and doesn't add up. I didn't really think about it much till you said something. But no joke and no fudging .... those are the numbers so I don't know exactly what is amiss. Where the difference in the statistical math and the mechanical stats is ...???   You've got me. Like I said, I can't verify the EXACT pitch of the prop since it is a reman, and I have no idea who it was that did the job.
One thing I haven't done is verify the GPS speedometer accuracy .... perhaps it's not calibrated right? Can they even be that far off? Guess I'll have to check that as well next time out.

Well I don't know what to tell you Ken. Had my daughter verify and log in all the recorded data in her phone to be sure I got it all straight.   The only thing that may be different is that when the MC dealership replaced all the damaged parts last winter they didn't give me a brand new 422 prop like they were supposed to. I noticed it was a refurbished prop while reinstalling it this spring. Perhaps the shop that refurbished the prop didn't get it true to the original ... too much pitch or cup?   IDK, but them's the numbers of the day   

Same as yours ... 422.   Don't know how much weight you were carrying, but we had roughly 200 lbs of gear, a completely full tank of fuel and about 500 lbs for the people factor. And of course there's the tower and all that related gear ( speakers, racks, amp, second battery, etc). Not sure about how much all that is but I'd guess somewhere around 350-400 lbs.

Well Mark I didn't get to go out yesterday - too much to do around the house and the wind was up a little high (big surprise in Kansas, lol). However I did get out this morning till about 2 or so. Big difference and as it turned out, the opposite experience that you had. All in all we had a great day with better than average boating conditions, warm weather without being HOT with the boat running very well - for the most part (more on this later).
Got out there early and there not only were few other boats on the water but very little wind which made the lake perfect for general boating and some 'testing'.
So here's what I've got so far: 25mph @ 2400rpm; 30mph @ 2800rpm; 34mph @ 3000rpm and at 3500rpm I would range from 41 to 43mph depending on the trailing winds or head winds. Direction of travel and wind direction didn't seem to matter much at all anywhere below the 3000 rpm mark. All of the speed #'s were GPS and my tach has been verified with a digital tach while on the hose at home.
I didn't feel comfortable quite yet opening her up to WOT so my limit today was about 3900rpm, which at the moment I glanced at the speedo was somewhere in the vicinity of 46-47mph. Elevation at El Dorado lake today was @ 1334.9 feet.

I think for the most part your normal RPM vs MPH will be a bit higher for the MPH than your RPM, especially being closer to sea level? than myself. I've observed in the past that regardless of low wind speed, rougher seas will reduce this somewhat and sometimes markedly so I'd think your top end with the 422 should fall around the 50mph+ range given good smooth boating conditions.

Now for the bad: The surging, unfortunately, is back. And today it was back with a vengeance. So much so that it was genuinely hard to keep the boat running anywhere below about 1200rpm while out of gear. While in gear once it settled, 1000-1100 rpm's seemed to be it's lower limit - much less than that and the dreaded surging would rear it's ugly head. Honestly, I'm really perplexed why I would get fairly smooth idles after the engine warmed in the driveway and as soon as I make it to the lake the surging not only comes back but is the worst it's been yet. As always, I'll do some more research and checking myself, but I'm open to any suggestions here .....

edit: one last note is that on several occasions while idling, or trying to idle, I would catch a whiff of fuel. Kind of reminded me of a carb engine that is running rich.

Will do Mark - planning on heading out again this weekend. I'd like to go out tomorrow, but big family dinner etc. planned in KC.

Good input Ken, much of your reasoning about the TPS was mine as well. Didn't know about the GT40 page info, thanks for throwing that out there ... I'll give it a read tonight

I also wanted to express my take on the muffler delete, since I seem to recall some interest in the outcome, or least my opinion after the fact. Personally, I love it - though I can see where a large percentage of folks would not care for the change. THIS is the deep throaty sound that I was looking for and wanted for my boat. I will admit that it is a bit louder at idle - in the water - than I had anticipated given the exhaust outlet is under water while at rest. I don't have a db meter, but if I had to guess I'd say about 10 db louder than I expected and maybe 20 db louder than with the Invertaflo.   I suppose the close proximity of the outlet to the surface plays a huge part in this, something I hadn't considered.
I've always had an I/O drive system in the past and to my knowledge none of them have mufflers, other than the water itself. Yet at rest they are nearly always very quiet - it's only on plane that you'll hear some of the exhaust note (unless of course you have thru-hulls or captains call).   Anyway, to me the elevated exhaust tone at rest was not distracting nor irritating and the on plane sound was nothing short of exhilarating!   I had met a buddy at the lake on Saturday and his opinion was the same, so much so that he spent much of the day Sunday trying to convince his wife to let him eliminate their muffler also. Naturally, that's not going to happen.       But they are much younger with small children, so......
Once again, I understand this is definitely not going to be a choice the majority of the members of CCF would make, but it sure suited me.