Port side manifold drains less water

[utexasrick]

I'm running my new rebuilt 4.3 engine for about 3 min at a time doing some testing for another problem. I noticed that whenever I go to drain the manifolds I get very little water out of the port side. The starboard side drains for a few seconds much longer than the port side. Is this normal?
I upgraded to the two piece manifold and elbow set, and cooling water hose connects to the manifold at the bottom.
Could this be something to do with the thermostat not being open yet? The boat is on a slight incline up towards the port side as the way I park it on the side of the street. Don't know if that has anything to do with it. maybe I'll park it in the other direction next time. I do know there is water coming out because I ran it once without connecting the exhaust elbows to the Y pipe.

 

[cr2k]

Re: Port side manifold drains less water

If the manifolds are new I would suspect some other problem. I know there is a water passage in the thermostat housing that you can not see and they sometimes get plugged and cause the thermostat to be forced open. Did you look inside the casting of the new manifolds to see that there were no restrictions. If it not an over heating problem and both risers are about the same temp I would not worry about it. I know that the idle relief port flow isn't always even at idle on muffs.

 

[makonnen]

Re: Port side manifold drains less water

I don't know if this information helps at all but I've owned a 4.3 in my last boat ... the port side elbow was always hotter than the starboard side. I never understood why. One was warm to the touch at operation, the other was "warmer" to the touch ... it wasn't just a little bit warmer, but was noticably warmer - the port side. But never too hot to touch.

This bothered me so much that I even replaced the manifolds, risers and eblows prematurely (probably could have got another 4+ years out of them) ... same problem. My only guess is the T that splits the raw seawater wasn't even.