Enigine Rebuild and Prop Questions
 

Friend has a 2000 Malibu Escape 23' LSV with the Diamond Hull with a ACME 1275 prop. I believe it has a 350 Chevy engine with roughly 1100 hrs on it.

95% of the time we wakeboard. We are in Houston Texas so no elevation and we put in on a river and are wakeboarding 5 min later, no long runs across the lake so top speed is not important. We run 750lb bags in each rear locker and a 1000lb triangle Bow sac that we probably only fill to roughly750lbs. No wedge

Long story short at some point in the last month it started running sluggish and was fighting getting on plane with the bags filled and 3-4 adults and 4 kids ranging from 30lbs to 60lbs.

He changed his spark plugs, wires and distributor cap. That did not make a difference, so he did a compression check and one cylinder was down to 50psi. A local mechanic believes it is his head gasket.

He is debating a few options -

1) pull the valve cover etc.... and replace his head gasket and see if that fixes the problem and keep rolling.

2) rebuild the engine at a mechanics shop so it will be rebuilt to stock specs and essentially have a new stock engine that came with boat.

3)Rebuild the engine at another mechanics shop that will put more performance parts in it to try to increase the horse power by 40-50 horses.

Now that I have given yall the long story, my question is with that setup in weight and typically wakeboarding is it worth the extra money to rebuild this engine with high performance parts to get another 40-50 horses? Will he recognize the difference? Will that really translate into getting on plane quicker with the added weight in the boat? Or is having the correct Pitched Prop more important than the 40-50 extra horse power? As previously stated top speed is not a factor biggest factor is getting on plane with extra weight and pulling a rider.

Is the 1275 a good prop for this setup? I am not sure of his Vdrive Gear ratio?

I appreciate any input.

thanks,

What's the price difference? A prop does wonders

My understanding is to rebuild the engine to stock he is getting a rough estimate of 1500$ and to rebuild it with upgraded performance parts between 3k and 3500$

A new prop will be a lot cheaper than the upgrades to engine

I'd pull the head and see what the problem is before making any decisions.

Yea, a surf prop will make a huge difference. Not heard of a 1275 so not sure what that is set up for...but know the 1235 is very popular on newer boats for torque. I have a 1433 on my SV244 and 1847 as a spare (very similar). I can put 5000lbs of ballast and 10 people on boat and still pull a car off bottom of lake with my ZR409 PCM engine.

Why not do a leak down test and eliminate the guessing and dart throwing.

Maybe I got the wrong prop info from him. Maybe it is a 1235. My feeling is his stock 350 engine with the proper pitched prop would have no problem pulling a rider out and getting on plane and probably don't have to spend extra to add horsepower.

I think that 350 puta out 290-335 horsepower (I'm not exactly sure) and his thinking is that's not enough to sufficiently get out of the hole?

I believe he will pull the head and figure out what's going on then try to decide.

TigeMike I agree a leak down is the route to go and that's my thought that if it is something basic or cheaper than rebuilding your engine you don't need to Rebuild your engine with higher performance parts for extra horsepower to get out of the hole with roughly 2000lbs. I think that engine running properly can handle that boat and weight and you don't need to try to add horsepower.

But I'm not the most knowledgeable on engines, weighted boats and props I'm kinda new to all this.

You could probably rent the tool to do the leak down. it will tell you if you have rings or piston problem, valve leakage, head gasket or cam lobe worn. Also, whats the compression on the other 7 holes? If they are all around 100psi, the whole engine is tired, so no need to think about addressing low compression on one cylinder. If they are like 200psi each, with one at 50, you have a good engine with one cylinder with an issue. worth digging deeper.

The other cylinders are around 120psi.

I'm thinking your first action needs to be to diagnose the problem. No use to rebuild an engine when your not even sure it needs it. At 1100 hours you should not be anywhere close to having a "tired" engine.

If it needs it then $3500 is a pretty average quote for a stock rebuild. If someone is offering to do a COMPLETE rebuild with performance parts and guarantee to add 40-50 hp that is a smoking good deal, IMO. On the other hand $1500 for a rebuild is insanely cheap. Like so cheap I would really wondering what they are doing. There is gonna be close to that much in parts and machining alone. So unless someone is doing the labor for free something is wrong with that quote.

RB thanks for that feedback. If He does rebuild the engine at some point then he probably needs to get a cost comparison from the different mechanics and understand exactly what is new and what is not etc....

I appreciate all the input and ideas. Thanks.

Just dont try to cheap out and put a car engine in it !!

pull the heads to figure out whats up. agree 1500 is cheap to get a "rebuilt" engine, but there may not be much wrong with it to start with.

I almost always opt for performance upgrades in a case like this, but I wouldn't drop 4k to do it. for example, a cam shaft is a cam shaft. Upgraded versions can be had for nearly the same price as a stock shaft. so.... What's he getting in "upgrades" for the 3500? Head work? that may explain some of it, but not 3500 $$.