2001 Sporster LE lower engine hose routing

[Never Satisfied]

I just picked this boat up and it was winterized by a dealer 2 hours away. The lower water hose below the cylinders was pulled and routed up to the RAVE valves. This is how they fill the engine with RV antifreeze. They said it should be routed to the back of the boat to dump. I looked online at the fiche and it shows it going to a bulkhead fitting on near the water inlets. But on this boat both of the fittings shown are hooked to hoses that route down to square plastic things clamped to the bottom of the boat. I pulled them up and they look like they are designed to suck water out of the bottom of the hull.

Anyway, there is no open ports and no open "Tees" on any of the lines to hook this blue hose to. Looking for help.

In the pics you can see the blue hose routed from below the cylinders to the RAVE cap. The other is the bulkhead with all fittings populated.

Thanks for helping a newb.

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

Take a look at the red circle in this attachment.

Boy those guys sure did make dewinterizing difficult, I just pinch the block drain hose using hemostats, fill block with non-tox antifreeze and then remove the hemostats and let it drain, I don't think it's any benefit to let the block set all winter full of antifreeze, that's just nuts!

My boat is splash-worthy when I'm done winterizing, add fresh fuel and go (I empty the fuel tank, b/c 2-strokes are especially octane/fuel quality sensitive).

The two black jobs on either side of the pump at the bottom of the bilge are your jet pump venturi operated autobailers, bilgewater gets sucked out the back by jetpump venturi action.

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

Here's a little better info maybe, had to look around and see if I could find something more helpful.

 

[Never Satisfied]

Many thanks, I'll check it out tonite.

Also, do you winterize by filling from the fitting near the oil fill?

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

Many thanks, I'll check it out tonite.

Also, do you winterize by filling from the fitting near the oil fill?

The purpose of using the antifreeze is to displace any water that may still remain trapped in the lower portion of the cylinders, and the lower portion of the exhaust manifold cooling jacket, I don't think there's very much there.

For this last step of winterization all I do is pinch the block drain tubing and pour about two quarts of 100% (non-diluted) consumer grade Recreational Vehicle antifreeze (non-toxic) into a hose connected to the cylinder head (first remove existing hose, and a funnel helps greatly) until the pink antifreeze runs out the cooling water outlet tube (Garden hose reverse flush port) of jetpump.

The service manual says to remove the exhaust waterbox valve and pour some antifreeze in there, but I never have. I figure the 30secs of running the engine on the trailer without any cooling water will blow the remaining water out of the exhaust waterbox.

If you run your 951 in saltwater, you definitely should reverse flush it using fresh water ASAP after removing from saltwater, there is a specific sequence for reverse flushing, the engine has to be running before turning on the garden hose water otherwise the cylinders can become water flooded. The inverse is true as well, the water should be turned off several seconds before shutting down the engine, to blow the remaining water out of the exhaust.

This reverse flushing procedure is rather awkward, thus I never do reverse flush my cooling system, I would if I ran the boat in salt though. For on-land testing, I start my boat and allow it to run for no longer than 30secs, thus I don't need cooling water for this short period.

 

[Never Satisfied]

Got it hooked up last night, thanks. Had to move the water box over some to get at it. I'll use your procedure to winterize this year!

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

It's definitely tight in there, for sure. Don't forget to oil the cylinders between uses, especially over winter, those are cast iron sleeves and when the motor stops both exhaust ports are open to atmosphere.

 

[Never Satisfied]

What's the proper max RPM for this 951? How fast should it be? Bought it to pull tubers and to teach my young ones to ski.

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

There's an RPM limiter at around 7200RPM, mine runs out at about 6900RPM max and 50MPH on the boat's speedo under the best of conditions. If you hit your rev limiter the jet pump condition is probably the cause, or the impeller has been changed to smaller pitch. A little less pitch can give it more grunt for pulling up a strong skier on slalom, mine can barely pull me out with single ski and if I lean back the way I would normally the boat goes nowhere. The boat should do the work, not the skier, so circle back around instead of making the skier swim to the rope. And avoid running the rope over, use a 75' rope.

I guess you will probably pull your skier under 30MPH, the boat will quickly come off plane under 20MPH and lift on plane about 25MPH, so you have to keep it above at least 20MPH while skiing, closer to 25 is better.

You should see around 30MPH at 5200 RPM or so, a good cruising RPM, I like 5000RPM best. I think a young skier once he's up would prefer the slowest speed you can manage and still remain on plane, which is just under 25MPH.

Dragging your skier will tire him quickly so learn how hard you can tug him out of the water and try to pull him up using as much throttle as he can withstand and still hang on. I think you might find full throttle will pull the handle from a beginner skier's hands, and the first few attempts in the water will tire him out, so bring him aboard at that point and let him rest before trying it again later.

I guess your young ones will learn to ski using doubles, there's plenty of grunt in this boat for that. I like a double handle rope myself, always an argument over which, single handle or double but for slalom I prefer the old-school two handle rope. I have an oval float just forward of the handle yoke so the driver can see the float and know where the handles are as he delivers them to the skier. keep the skier on your side of the boat while circling so you can see the skier at all times.