Winterizing a SCIC, an experiment...

[madbare]

Hey guys,

I thought I would share the results of an experiment that I did based on what the local dealer was telling me. I asked about winterization and they told me that BRP is now saying that running the engines to expel the water out of the intercooler and exhaust is enough now and adding anti-freeze is not necessary. I had seen nothing about this on the forum so I thought I would look into this myself a little closer. Here is what I did:

1: Ran each engine for a minute to warm up and then burst the throttle to purge water.

2: I attached an adapter to the rear flush port of the boat that allows me to pressurize the system with compressed air. It is the adapter I bought at camping world to blow out my RV's water lines. I did this on each side and could only hear a little water inside the lines.

3: I ran the engines again and burst the throttle once again.

Now to check how this did I removed the lines from the intercoolers to see if any water would come out. There were none and the lines were clear. So I took this one step further to see if there was any water in the intercooler. I removed each intercooler from the intake manifold and I got nothing but a couple drips of water out of them.

So based on this testing this seems like a great alternative to draining and filling the system with antifreeze. This is an 08 Islandia with the 430HP package. I did need to add antifreeze to the fresh water system as there is no way to pressurize the system to expel the water.

As always, your results may vary, but I am satisfied with the results of this experiment.

Steve :cheers:

 

[huttcraft]

Hi Steve --

I just winterized my SCIC this weekend and played around with your method a little. I did not have an adapter to use compressed air so couldn't blast out the system, so at the end of the day I knew I'd be adding some antifreeze.

I parked the trailer on a slight hill with the stern lower than the bow, then ran the motor for about 4 minutes. At the 4 minute mark I blipped the throttle a few times till not much if any water seemed to be coming out of the exhaust, then shut it down. After that I pretty much followed the manual.

In my case the throttle blipping seemed to clear almost all water out of the intercooler, but I was surprised to find quite a bit still in the exhaust manifold and the hose between the two. Did you check the exhaust manifold as well?

As an aside, the manual advises to use an "extra piece of hose" attached to the top nipple on the intercooler to pour in the antifreeze. I spent an hour rummaging around the cottage looking for something that would fit. In the end I was surprised to find that the accordion hose for my electric air pump -- the cheapie for filling up tow tubes and the like -- fit perfectly. I filled the IC with antifreeze without spilling a drop.

Dave

 

[Summit08]

Dave (from Halifax), i have a 2010 challenger 180 250hp SCIC. any idea where i can get an owners manual. i am looking for specific instructions on winterizing. thanks in advance for any help

Ron

 

[madbare]

Hi Dave,

Yes I did check the exhaust and there was just a little bit of water in there. That will not hurt anything. BRP says the exhaust is self draining so there is no worry about water in the critical parts. It just accumulates in the large chamber, which is ok. I am not sure how similar our exhausts are so you might need to look at that a little closer.

Ron, if you go to the Sea Doo website and look under the owners section there is a link to all the owners manuals online. You can then save it as a pdf after it loads.

Steve