2009 Challenger 180SE Cavitation?

[Tysonk]

Hello everyone,

This weekend I had out on her maiden voyage (with me) my new 2009 Challenger 180 SE with the 255HP 4-Tec. Before this boat I have had 14' jet boats but this is my first step into the big leagues.

My boat had 29 hours on it when I bought it, and seems to be in mint shape.

My question is: I seem to be getting some cavitation on the whole shot. If I drop the throttle from a standstill the engine will cavitate until I get on plane. Now If I ease down the throttle it will get on plane without cavitation as long as I don't hit WOT until its up and moving. Once on plane there were no cavitation issues that I noticed.

Now since this is my first 18 footer' I am not really sure what to expect. It does not seem right that it cavitates on the whole shot. If I was towing a skier or other I am not sure how well it would pull them out of the water

I was hoping that someone with one of these boats could let me know if the cavitation is inherent on a larger jet boat or if I should be taking it back to the dealer to have a look at it.

Thanks in advance,
Tyson

 

[Supercharger]

It sounds like a wear ring problem.

 

[James.Moon]

Others in the forum have mentioned their new 2009 180SEs cavitate for 1-3 secs upon WOT hole shot. I don't remember what thread but there were several with same problem. I had 24 hrs on my 180SE 255HP lst year and had never done the hole shot thing as I always go through the channel no wake zone on the way out to the lake. This year however I tried it several times to see how mine acted. Low & behold it does the same thing. Cavitates momentarily, about a count of 1-2-3 however it stops cavitating well before planing. I doubt the wear ring has much wear yet or anything significant is wrong as it appears several others haved the same problem. I am thinking it is just too much instant power & acceleration that the physics of it causes some momentary turbulence that causes the cavitation. It would be nice to see BRP's comment re. this. Top speed is 93kph per speedo, however my GPS says speedo is reading 10kph too high.

 

[Tysonk]

Update:

I emailed my dealer and this is what the service manager said (cut and paste):

"Sounds like a ride shoe issue or pump support issue, not sealed properly, had the same issue on a 180 last year! Drive has to come out ride shoe removed and pump support, reseal everything!"

I have read other posts on the forum from people with the same boat and the same problem, and some suggest this is the solution.

So I brought it in and they are currently working on it. I will reply if this fixed the problem or not.

 

[Young Again]

Ride shoe - (apparently) - I took mine in last fall with the hole shot problem, just like yours - they told me - wear ring. So they did the wear ring - I took it out for a test run - still did it. Too late in the season, so they looked at it a couple of weeks ago - wear ring - again - but this time they went further and found a void under the Ride shoe sucking air (which was likely causing the wear ring to prematurely show signs. I pick mine up Saturday and will be on the water before leaving the dealer - these guys were great.

 

[James.Moon]

180 SE Challenger- Hole shot Cavitation

Update:

I emailed my dealer and this is what the service manager said (cut and paste):

"Sounds like a ride shoe issue or pump support issue, not sealed properly, had the same issue on a 180 last year! Drive has to come out ride shoe removed and pump support, reseal everything!"

I have read other posts on the forum from people with the same boat and the same problem, and some suggest this is the solution.

So I brought it in and they are currently working on it. I will reply if this fixed the problem or not.

Please let us know if it cures the problem. I wish to go after my Dealer for warranty fix, but so far I am not sure what the real problem is. It is easy for mechanics to come up with a theory then proceed with the changes and hope. Worn wear rings so early doesn't seem good.

 

[Young Again]

Problem solved

Picked it up yesterday, guys (and gals) at Quinns were awesome. They went through the whole process and one of the service techs actually took the time to climb under a boat in the showroom to illustrate what the problem was. They did a soapy bubble test and could see where water was coming from the side of the ride plate into the pump, which was causing the cavitation. You should have seen the groove cut into the wear ring after only 2 hours. The groove was circular, indicative I'm told of the impeller vibrating due to the cavitation, whereas if you suck up a stick or something you will likely see an irregular cutting. Took the boat out today as it was raining yesterday. :drool5:
This pops up and out of the water without any hesitation, nor does it hit the rev limiter. It always ran well once under way, but i hit 93 km on Lake Simcoe with quite a bit of chop.
We're still waiting for the warranty to be approved, and I'm pretty confident they will - otherwise I'm out 1400.00 and looking for a different boat......
Sure does demonstrate how touchy these drives can be, I will be learning how to do my own wear rings, but hopefully won't need to worry for quite a few years.
One thing the service guy noted was that the amount of wear that was on my ring if it were on a PWC - no problem, but when you start dealing with boats the size and weight of the Challenger, things become a lot more evident.
Hats of to the guys at Quinn's Marina, they could have just as easily have given me the run around and said "wear ring", but they took the time to dig deeper and do a proper diagnostic - in other words, they listened to their customer - not something many are willing to do these days.
I've heard more than once that the ride plates have been a big problem with these boats, which is one of the reasons why I asked them to take a harder look.
No - there are no Technical Bulletins out on this from BRP as of yet.

 

[Young Again]

By the way, they broke the ride plate taking it out of my boat - this is apparently one bitch of a job - and from what I've read here and elsewhere on the internet - one I'm not about to try and tackle myself.

 

[Tysonk]

I have not gotten my boat back yet, so no update.

I also have 95 speedster that when up on plane both engines hum nicely at about 6800 rpm (normal for this boat). But when trying to get out of the whole both engines are cavitating and i have to shift weight to the front to get it up on plane. New impellers, new wear rings, new driveline seals, new everything. The only thing left to fix is the ride shoe. I thought of this after young again said they broke the shoe getting it off. These are siliconed like h#ll, and bolted on the bottom of the boat. I am VERY hesitant to take mine off because if it brakes there is no replacement available. Even if I find another boat to get one off of, It will also likely break while removing it. A real bummer since I spent two summers totally restoring this boat from engines to apholstery...

 

[Young Again]

Engineers

Anything that requires the use of a bottle jack to help separate from the hull - isn't going to be fun:banghead:. I got to thinking about this yesterday, as I was sitting out in the middle of the lake enjoying the day.....
Why can't they come up with a way of needle injecting the voids (provided you can detect them)? - or as someone else suggested, just sealing the heck out of the edges?

 

[ski-d00]

you can, actually, if you look very closely and carefully, you usually can find the exact spot where the air leak is causing the cavitation. at that point, you can cut out the silicone in this area and clean it up. also helps to cut back at an angle so that the new silicone area is trapped by an undercut, then just re silicone. this normally works perfectly and is a permanent fix, much easier than getting pump shoes out in one piece, cleaning it all up, and reinstalling. the extra time spent during inspection is well worth it but may take an hour to find.

 

[Tysonk]

Update!

Cut and paste:
"There we go:

This is the ride show and the seal was blown off as you can see. Looks right from Factory since day one. We are going to reseal it all up and see how it goes."

I will post another update when I get her on the water. Good to know that the problem was identified and fixable, well hopefully.

T

 

[Tysonk]

Well...

After a week and a half in the shop, I brought the boat out to see if it was fixed It runs the exact same... now at this point I am Bummed!!

So, I call the salesman again and let him know it is still cavitating. He has the argument that all these boats cavitate out of the hole and cornering. I disagree, so he takes me out in a 2011 180 SE with 0 hours on it. We launch and warm up the engine, and he drops the throttle (break in period??). This thing popped out of the hole, if it did cavitate for a split second (I mean fraction of a second) when the throttle was dropped it was only noticable because I was watching sooo closely. So he powers out of some turns and no cavitation. Then he starts putting it into 360's... and it cavitates (likely because of the angle of the boat). He goes "see they all cavitate" . I was like, wait a minute my boat cavitates for a long period of time out of the hole, untill the boat is up on plane, I cannot power through corners, and I have not even tried a 360 yet. There is definetly a problem here.

So, he then mentions, that the wear ring was at 80% and the impeller had some dings in it (wtf!!!???!!). So, after putting 18 hours of labour into the boat, they put bad parts back into it!

Now the boat is back in the shop getting new prop, and ring installed. Now this may not seem like a big deal, making multiple trips to the dealership, but my boat is in a drydock about an hour from where I live, and the shop is an hour from there.

I am disapointed that they did not do all the work at once, I would likely be an extatic boater, instead of ranting on this forum.

I will update if the imp, and ring fixed the problem.

 

[Young Again]

When I went in for the second wear ring, what I said to them was, fine let's do the ring, but put it in the water right away and see if that fixes the problem, check the impeller and shaft at the same time - if no - then suggested they consider the ride shoe - which is exactly what they did and then they submitted the (2nd) wear ring under warranty as well claiming that it was the cavitation caused by the leaking ride shoe that caused the 2nd wear ring (and likely the 1st - but that money is already long gone)

I'm extremely thankful that they found and fixed the problem - I'm even more thankful that I've found a good bunch of people that I can trust to work on my boat......