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New engine in boat...few hiccups.

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factory81

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Alright I got the boat back today with the SBT engine in there....

Couple problems with SBT as a company but we will save that for another day.


I get the boat out and I take her easy, I was told I could bring it to 6-7k to get it plane, but after it planed lay off on it and just take it easy. That's cool. The boat runs fine.

Well we get in the boat "highway" where everyone speeds around, and I saw a Jet-Skier who wanted to race. Well I bring it up out of the hole and we cruise at 6k rpm and its kicking butt.

Than the boat just dies on me. I feel the engine right away to see the temperature and it is a little....just a little too hot for the touch, but not to the point where its like "hot dang don't touch that". Boat tries to turn over but gives up, and I say well lets give it a minute. Couple minutes later boat starts up just fine.

Than the same problem happened 2-3 other times when we were cruising at speeds in the 5-6k rpm range. The last time it happened I pushed down on the spark plugs cables to make sure they were getting good contact and it started right back up. It seems like an overheating issue, but what do I know? So we got 3 hours of riding time on the boat tonight in the 2,000-6k rpm range.

So that issue is of concern....

Than the last issue was we wouldn't touch the throttle and the rpms would fluctuate and we might slow down just a little every now and than if we were cruising say at 4,000rpms. Might go down to like 3,300 without touching the throttle. It was just kind of odd and I want to make sure this isn't a sign of a larger problem.



And on to SBT, we sent casings that the mechanic had welded back together because my old ones were shot. SBT said they wouldn't take ones that had been re-welded, and there could be a casing charge of $750 dollars on top of the engine. Than the mechanic proposed to SBT that we will send them a casing from another PWC repair shop around here that isn't welded and is in working order.

Anyways for this engine install with a $1000 core charge that we are waiting back from SBT the install came to $3,600....with $1,000 coming back to the card. My mechanic also lost 2 life jackets (which he comped me for), but we brought him the lanyard but he says he can't find it. So I get charged $38 for a key to be programmed for my boat.

My mechanic just once again reinforced I try and learn how the boat likes to be driven and learn when to lay off and when to give it the go. He suggested I look in to a 4 stroke saying if everyone had 4 strokes he would be out of business as they are much more reliable. At this point in time I am considering an 18 foot Challenger with a 4 stroke for next year if I can come up with the cash.
 
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Better go ahead a get ready to send that engine back. You cant put a new engine in a boat and just go out and raise cain in it. You have to break it in properly or it will overheat and will cause damage within the first five minutes. Engine break in is a very slow process which involves very low rpms for the first two tanks of gas. I would seriously hope that your mechanic told you about breaking in the engine. How the crap did he lose your life jackets? This guy doesn't sound very good and I wouldn't trust him, he's ripping you off. If he had done his job he would have it running perfectly out of the shop, carbs adjusted correctly and all. This guy should be out of business, 4 strokes or not.
 
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So if you put a new engine in it will overheat very easily is that what you are saying?

If so than that might explain why it shut off at 5-6k rpm. It would give me one loud beep and than I would have to take the key out, wait a minute, try and turn it and it might turn. But it would take 2-3 minutes

He told me as far as breaking it in...run the tank of gasoline in it through and get it to plane and back off. I was like well how many rpms should I ride at? And he didn't really specify.

So I should just continue to run her easy for 2-3 tanks of gas here and keep it under 4k rpms or is 4k even too high?

I hope my current engine doesn't have any problems with it from taking it out and getting it to plane today.
He also told me to put a whole quart of oil with the gasoline when I fill it up...is this sound advice?

Other tips he told me is to open the boat hatch and let it "air out" before I run it. He said that the engine will have perspiration from humidity and such just dripping all over the entire engine which isn't good to have.
Let the engine warm up by sitting and letting it idle for 5 minutes before taking it out.
 
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:rant:
Most likely your engine is already screwed. I cant believe he told you that. SBT has a good article on engine break in.
http://www.sbtontheweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13960

Your engine should have a no fault warranty. Demand your mechanic to refund your money for mis information, order a new engine and either do it your self or take it somewhere else. Break it in exactly as the article says.

Sorry bud, but your mechanic does not know what he is talking about. :rant:
 
Also, please stop editing your threads adding information before someone replies to them. :)
 
You seriously think I damaged my engine already?

Man I think I might be in the clear. I did keep the boat at a 2-3k rpm for about 1 hour or more rarely touching the throttle than once we finally got out in the open I took it probably to 66% for a minute and then laid off it. Than I did that again about 10 minutes later and it finally shut down on me.

I didn't let it have a 30 minute break after running it from 2-3k rpm for an hour though :(
Well other than when it stopped on me we probably sat for 10 minutes.
 
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Factory, read the article about break in. It will tell you everything you need to know about how you should break it in.
 
Well I read the article and like I said I don't think I did too much out of what they said except I didn't sit for 30 minutes and let the engine sit and cool down completely.

We're going to go out fishing on my boat though and I think that will be a nice break in. Go 2-3k rpm for a bit, than stop and fish for a while, go 2-3k rpm for a bit and bump it to 50% throttle for a minute than bring it back.

Scaring the heck out of me though saying I probably killed my new engine the day I pick it up.
 
Oh yeah and I also probably brough it to 66% throttle instead of 50% throttle like they said for my "racing" adventure.
I didn't hammer on it though when we raced because I knew running at WOT was a no-no. But who knows maybe I just don't have luck with boats.
 
Tomorrow morning I am going to just go out and do exactly what the article says.
30 minutes on, 30 minutes off following the throttle positions they suggest.

Man I really hope I didn't screw this engine up.

If it makes anyone feel better we drove the boat for about 3 hours exactly today and we well. Didn't let it sit every half an hour like they suggested.

Man I feel like a doof here. I hope because I didn't give it time to cool down I didn't warp anything or screw things up. That's the biggest problem I see with how I was driving today and what SBT suggests. I wasn't told to let it sit for 30 minutes after running it for say 30 minutes at 2-3k rpm (or 20% throttle).
 
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do compression test on it. As far as break-in, as soon as I assembled my motor, and it fired up, that was enough break-in for me. Boat rocked even up to when sold...
 
These engines are DELIBERATELY assembled a little too tight. And, lots of WEAR is anticipated, during break in. That is what break in is all about. Now, some motors are just a bit tighter than others. If you take a NEW motor, just assembled, that is real tight, and run it hard, due to parts not fitting right yet, sometimes they overheat, and are a weak motor for life. Sometimes they just come apart early.

It all varies, depending on which parts were the tightest.

With model airplane engines, they finally went to breaking them in at the factory, and adding an abrasive to the fuel, to assist in break in. This would "speed up the process". They would run them, until they began to overheat, then shut off.

Then, they would sell them as new engines, and some are still so tight, that they overheat some, and have to be babied. Anyhow, most of the radical break in is done at the factory, with super tight engines like this.

But, apparently with SBT etc, they either are not so tight that they feel this is necessary, or IF you do the procedure yourself, (which is not too hard) they trust you to do it right.

But it is always good to allow cool off, to allow stuff that overheats a bit to relax.

Good break in can make the diff between short or long engine life, AND the characteristics of that particular engine.

Nate
 
I do feel comfortable with my engine in the sense that SBT said to take it to 90% for a half an hour after going for 20% throttle and 50% throttle.

I didn't even give it that much juice just because I was told not to ride at near or WOT.

Going to take her out here in a few minutes....
 
Forgot to put oil in today before I went out. Did pretty much what the SBT procedure is. 30 minutes at 2-3k rpm varying in speeds never holding a single throttle position.

15-20 minutes of cool down (engine wasn't even warm). I sucked up a bunch of weeds so I tried to get her going a little more but realized I was going to have take it back to shore to pull them out, so tried reversing and no luck there. Cruised back in at 2-3k rpm and every now and tried to get it to plane once or twice but I wasn't seeing it shooting water out the back and saw excess white smoke.

The weeds were probably suffocating the engine. When I got back to shore I had a 2-3 handfuls of weeds in the intake grate.

Came home and put some pennzoil 100% synthetic 2 stroke engine oil in the gasoline (probably 3-5 cups worth of oil).

Engine gave us no problems today, and I suspect my inability to get it plane was the excess weeds.

Engine never got really warm today. I also let it warm up for a couple minutes before leaving the deck and after I left the dock I just put it in forward and let the throttle sit all the way down (and just cruised at probably a couple mph) for 10-20 minutes.

Just treating it like a baby.
 
Don't worry about it

Worst case with adding too much oil to the fuel is it may smoke a lot, or foul the plugs. Carry spare plugs and the tools to change them and don't worry about it.


Aaron
 
My boat has ruled the last couple days. I don't think the engine shuts off anymore. Although I still haven't ran a full tank of gasoline through it.

I just run it for a bit like SBT says. Turn her off, sit around and do some homework on the boat. etc

I forget to turn the gasoline back on. I shut the gasoline off while we parked once. And the boat started, drove and finally died from no gas. I couldn't get it started for quite a few minutes. I was getting a tow and like 3 minutes in to the tow the engine turns on.

Than we were off again....

I did go in an area I hadn't been in before and the "pisser" out the back was actually shooting out a murky sand. I just basically came in to too shallow of water right?
 
Well we have gone through one full tank of gas in the boat. The boat hasn't had any hiccups.

I ran it so low actually that the boat started acting up on the way back to the dock. I got it out and saw that I should have been on the reserve tank definitely, and I went and put $20 in gas in it, and 2 new spark plugs than took it back out and worked fine no problems.
I also put I dunno, another cup or two of oil in with the $20 in gasoline.

I now...
-wash the boat out everytime after use
-unplug the black plugs on the back of the boat after getting out of the water and plug them back up when i get back to the dock, so the boat sits with the plugs off in case of rain
-take the storage stuff out of the engine bay and let the engine dry off from perspiration 15-30 minutes before going out
-start the boat as soon as I put it in to the water so when I get back to the boat the boat has been at least warming up for a few minutes, let it sit for at least 5 minutes to warm up, than take off slowly and "work up" to fast speeds


I will only get to take it out maybe a handful of times before I have to winterize it this year, but I think I will have her broken in for next summer. The boat is pretty cool, and we don't always have to be riding WOT to have fun. When I broke it in we just really cruised around at 2-4k rpm and sometimes as we got more hours in on it I would get it to plane and run it at 5-6k rpm for a minute or two than just cruising around at 2-4k rpm again.
 
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Sounds like you worked it out just fine.

You mentioned penzoil synth 2-stroke oil...
What kind of oil are you running in the oil tank?
 
You should make sure it is API-TC rated. TC-W3 won't lube enough, can contribute to engine failure...
 
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