It lives! 81 wellcraft 180XL

[samt]

Well after alot of hell, i had a successful day at the lake. I rebuilt the upper gearcase with the help of Wayne Coll's youtube videos. Boat has a chevy 350 pulled from a Nova. My esa wasnt working, but I have it shifting good after installing a HEI distributor with vac advance and an edlebrock 750 carb. It idles at 600rpm. On the water i guess it runs out of power at 4300 RPM unless i trim it out good. Is that normal? Gearcase is 1.5:1. Prop is a 15" 17pitch 3 blade stainless. No idea what is inside the engine. Boat seems pretty mild on fuel so far compared to what i thought it might use. It doesn't yank a 300lb skier out of the water as easy as i thought it might, but its probably because the skier isn't very good!

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

fun!

it runs out of power at 4300 RPM unless i trim it out good. Is that normal?

yes, that means you are propped right- 4200-4600 is the range.
However in a little 18, I would expect you'd need 21 or 23P prop to keep it under 4600.

Some 350's from Novas (assuming you mean Chevy Nova, not Wellcraft Nova) could have as little as 175HP with 4 barrel if using the original smog-era camshaft (1972-on). The right cam could add 50% to the power.

If you mean car HEI, you should be aware of the coast guard regs on marine ignition equipment. plus, vacuum advance doesn't tend to work very well in marine application. Your timing may be way off as far as total advance required in a boat.

what kind of speed did it do? If under 50, I think you are leaving a lot of power on the table with car cam and car ignition.

 

[samt]

Motor is an unknown, i do know it has been rebuilt, crank has machinist paint writing on it. Has edlebrock performer intake. 4 bolt mains. Had a deep sump, but i swapped it for boat sump. No clue of cam. Distributor is from a 83 chevy pickup i had. I guess i used the wrong balancer because timing mark doesn't line up with deal on timing cover. I timed by redneck vacuum style. Engine starts easy and didn't ping on year old gas so i have room to advance timing. Heck it was $300! It ran about 43mph with trim down all the way, almost 50 after playing with trim. Never broke 4600rpm. I totally expected to see 5500 with 305 gearing and prop still on. Its like you hit an electronic rev limit that says your done, because it pulls hard and then just sits there. Im more than willing to swap a cam this winter if boat runs good the rest of the summer, maybe buy a new distributor. I still have the old mallory that was on it, but it needs tune up kit and swaped to electronic. My motor shop friend suggests i lock timing and set for max total advance (his boat is that way) but since my esa is missing im not sure i could keep the idle low enough. I have a spare disribitor i guess i could weld the weights or disable the vacumme and leave the weights. I could even modify for more advance too. Its gonna be hard to get right though without timing marks. Guess i could make my wife drive boat and set timing at full speed!

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

you can make your own timing marks easy enough. Just get or make a TDC tool (mine is an old brass hyd fitting and an old pushrod), and find TDC and mark it on the damper then measure circumference of damper and divide by 360 degrees - then mark off 8 or 10 degrees before TDC with white-out.
I set my zero to the ridge where oil pan meets block as I don't have a timing tab on the timing chain cover.

 

[samt]

Back to the lake this weekend. I played with the tuning and boat still runs out of power. Pulls great on tube and up to 200lb skiers. Haveing trouble getting all 300 of me up, but im almost up, im not very limber, but strong like an ox, so it drowns me before i quit drinking water. Friend driving says it boggs pretty bad pulling me. May need to get rid of vac advance? Im guessing my motor is just in that 175-200HP range, since it pulls to where the old OMC 200 305 did. Guess i need to look at some upgrades this winter. Boat is running great overall, no issues besides disappointing power. Pretty gentle on fuel. I only burned 9 gallons on the lake from 2-7 yesterday with 5 in the boat. Mostly aggressive adult tubing, a little wakeboard, and i probably tried to ski 15 times. Im still getting some oil in my gearcases, not sure why, the upper has all new seals, but i didn't replace the cover on the top. Ive just changed the oil after every outing. Prop is actually a 14.5" 17 pitch stainless, has some chunks missing, but they have been smoothed out, how much does that matter? I guess i could buy something like a 16 pitch for more holeshot? But if i swap my cam this winter i may wish i had just waited to buy the right prop then. Lake we go to is so small that i don't really have a need to go faster than 40.

 

[samt]

Double post

 

[samt]

Did some searching on my engine vin. 1M0828 4VP block and heads GM blue, a little darker than the OMC blue my accessories are.
From my googling I gather its a Mexico manufactured Targetmaster crate engine. Manufactured 8/28 of probably 1984 or 74 who knows. and the horsepower rating is pretty crappy, rated at like 185HP, but thats optimistic, I may be there with my intake and carb, but thats it. I sift through alot of different ratings for these, but who knows. I guess I need to pull a valve cover and see what the heads are and go from there.

 

[samt]

Well i did some testing today. Compression 140-150. None below. Cold engine. Timing 8btdc Pulled plugs and they were black sooty, like totally sooted up. Googled new plugs and got them. Then i noticed that the plugs i bought are 1/2 inch or so shorter, i guess the plugs in it were for vortec heads? Not sure how many ponies that was costing me. Motor start and idles better sounds stronger too. I think they were sooted because last summer i was running a holley carb that was constantly flooding. Also put a new fuel filter. It was $3 at parts house, cant believe a marine one is $30.