can i raise my 1991 v6 SEA DRIVE?

[phatmanmike]

hello. i have a 1991 225hp sea drive mounted to the back of a full transom 1984 sea craft 20' center console.<br /><br />as it is now, when in the water at rest, the water comes up and over the exhaust ports on the back of the motor and almost to the cowl hood. after coming to rest from cruising, water comes up over the top of the cowl hood, and im afraid i may ingest water into my new motor(to me, its new) <br /><br />i have a 24" setback with the sea drive, and right now, the anti-cav plate of the motor is about 1" higher than the lowest part of the hull/keel. the boat has a pad, about 14" wide in the bottom of the hull , and it runs forward about 8 feet. the deadrise at the transom is pretty light, id say around 15* degrees<br /><br />i would like the motor to be higher, not just for obvious water getting into the motor reasons, but also to help gain a lil bit in the performance region, too.<br /><br />if i DO/CAN raise the seadrive, i would like to fiberglass over the old holes and such with a new sheet of glass right on top, inside the boat, giving the motor some nice, new , added support, cause this puppy is heavy!

 

[phatmanmike]

Re: can i raise my 1991 v6 SEA DRIVE?

^

 

[Solittle]

Re: can i raise my 1991 v6 SEA DRIVE?

I have a pair of 1987 1.6L SeaDrives on the back of my 1988 23' Wellcraft CC. I don't know how close mine are to yours but yes they can be moved. Due to the setback I would recommend that you find someone who really knows these units to aid you in determining exactly where to drill the new holes & cut outs. For mine it would be more than just punching new mounting holes as there is a through the transom cut out for the trim/tilt motor. I have not moved mine - - and mine do sit low but not as low as you describe for yours.<br /><br />You need to be very careful about water ingestion as the carbs will suck the water in very quickly. This is especially not good if salt water. I had one of mine ingest a lot of salt water when one of the little hoses in the back came off a "T" fitting at 4400 rpm. It acted as a little fire hose - - rebuilt powerhead time.<br /><br />I have had my rig for 12 years and one of the major gripes that I hear from time to time is the initial installation was never right for many of these (to low). I have had no problems with the SeaDrive part of my motors. If you are going to do your own work on the SeaDrives I strongly recommend that you get the OMC manuals. The powerheads are pretty much the same as the non SeaDrive motors.

 

[Solittle]

Re: can i raise my 1991 v6 SEA DRIVE?

For what it is worth - When my boat is in the water the water level comes to about 2" below the exhaust relief ports. Somewhere there is a post on where these SeaDrives should be mounted. You might try the red search function at the top of the page & enter SeaDrive or Sea Drive as a search arguement.<br /><br />Another thing when coming off of plane there is a stern wave that comes forward to the transom (you mention that also). I find that if I goose the throttle a tad just before this wave hits the transom that it will disipate before washing over the motor.

 

[surprise]

Re: can i raise my 1991 v6 SEA DRIVE?

My 2.0L SeaDrives have a system to pick up water that gets inside the cover, I expect they all have this, dunno how well it works. We made a template of the transom of the boat they came from (24' Performer--a boat much like a 24' Albemarle) and used the same dimensions on the transom of my Searay SRV 240 Sportbridge. That worked fine, but the Searay originally had twin I/0's and has a lot of beam and freeboard at the stern. The Sea Crafts are sometimes referred to as "Sink Crafts" even with transom mounted outboards, they tend to sit low at the stern. Some folks who convert them to bracket outboards use a bracket especially made for them that has a lot of flotation built into it. It is expensive, something like $4K, I think. It is going to be a big job moving the SeaDrives up, be careful that what you end up with is plenty strong--this might be the biggest disadvantage to SeaDrives: no adjustment. I do like they way they tilt the lower units well out of the water, my boat stays in salt water the whole season. Good advice from SL on goosing the boat ahead a bit to avoid the overwash problem, that is a technique that is necessary with many bracket equipped boats.

 

[vipsantee]

Re: can i raise my 1991 v6 SEA DRIVE?

I have a 24ft VIP with a 1.6 seadrive. I lost #4 cylinder 2 times from water ingestion. I fixed mine by sealing the cowls air inlets and adding a 4 inch hose that picks up air from inside the boat, Havn't had any more water problems in 4 years