Repowering my '89 XTB with a slight "Geneva" influence to close out the 2018 season...

[G Allen]

My new to me Allison is getting a bit more oomph on the back. Recently purchased a less than 50 hour 2001 vintage mercury factory built 2.5 long block with some goodies bolted on it. VST is deleted, has lightweight flywheel and 16 amp charging setup, Boyesen reeds, Geneva Fla. local David Dreifort's throttle linkage, choice of 225 or 260 tuners, 2 piece adaptor, 39psi fuel regulator, leaving the limiter set stock. A Simon alternator kit is on it, the slight power suck bumps the charging up to 65 amps or so. The Geneva locals are a small group of boaters known for their 120 mph outboard rides...

The old, Titus coned '88 vintage 150 preload gearcase that my Promax 150 powerhead/225 Promax mid came to me with has a history of abuse and lots of hours, and likely is not ready for the increase in power. Since the skeg has been welded twice on it, is likely unsafe at higher speeds anyway. Might be OK in the future for a 35-40 mph Bayliner Bob type of boat with a fully submerged prop. I'd sell it dirt cheap. Am getting a compression check done on the 150 BB block factory powerhead before yanking it, it will be up for sale, nice runner with a history of richly ratio'ed premix run through it since nearly new.

Found a used Sportmaster 1.87 fat shaft with an "Allison" cut skeg from a Geneva based seller with some fresh guts inside that had a 20 inch driveshaft replacing the 15 installed right before shipping by Geneva local gearcase legend Jason Wolf.

The Hydromotive 4 blade prop custom made for the boat had a fatshaft hub put in it today, but the Quicksilver 26 pitch Trophy regular shaft wheel was an older design that does not use the flo-torque hub so it now is up for sale. It looks like solid 8 1/2- maybe 9 condition. Time for prop shopping becauseI need a spare.

The boat has 80-85 pounds of downriggers and balls carried in the gunwales slightly forward of the midsection when they are mounted and the Ultrex is heavy enough that I needed to remove the ballast out of the port side rod locker. The 150 is on a 14 inch setback fixed jackplate, propshaft center even with the pad. It pushed the XTB at 6200 ft above sea level with just me and a couple fishing rods in it to 62 mph and 5800 rpm with the 26 hydro prop bolted to the the old 2/1 case. Guessing with the 225 powerhead and 1.87 sporty that the hydro might just hit or be a tad under the stock limiter at 6750 rpm WFO. What ever prop I get will be for going fast lightly loaded without the downriggers, since I already have a 4 blade that should be fine for with them. Maybe a Hoss, Mazco, or chopper, am open to suggestions. Needs a fair amount of bow lift. Hole shot is less important than high speed.

When I took the boat in to be rigged for multi species fishing it snowed a fair amount here In Utah, just like when you take your car to the car wash it rains...When I dropped off the boat today for the repower, the NOAA infared satellite showed a series of storms is approaching from the west, and starting tomorrow afternoon it is supposed to snow off and on for the next six days, a couple feet might fall at Park City Mountain Resort where I teach private ski lessons to the darlings of Hollywood and Wall street. The lake won't be frozen by a week from now on my next day off to pick the boat up but there might be some snow down to the water's edge, will bring a 25 lb. spud bar and sharpened spade shovel to clear ice off the boat ramp in a path wide enough for the wheels of my 4wd truck to be able to pull the boat back out... Gonna wear a full on snowmobile suit under the clipped in life vest, and of course...The trademark Elmer Fudd hat. More cowbell...!!!

 

[silverbullet02]

Take pictures! Curious to see how it does for you.

 

[G Allen]

Just waiting for a fuel pump and relay for the no vapor separator fuel rigging to arrive and be installed for it to be finished. The old, strong running powerhead had great compression with less than 5 psi difference for all 6 holes. The shop has a spare shipping crate for it. The throttle position sensor will need to be adjusted for lower altitude. The old 24v trolling motor is sitting in the Ultrex box. It's a lot lighter than the Ultrex that replaced it. I removed the power supply wires from the spade fittings inside the control pedal, but easy to find and re attach them, negative goes to the spade fitting by the capacitors. Positive goes to the fitting by the foot switch. I hung on to the old prop to use for the new motor, but did tape the shear pin to the prop shaft. The 150 powerhead, the gearcase and the great running 24volt Johnson/MK trolling motor are available for decent prices if someone has a winter project needing some stuff.

The skeg welded Titus coned gearcase is not suitable for surface running prop situations on high speed hulls. For a pontoon or house boat running a submerged prop at slower speeds it likely would be okay.

The fat shaft sporty gearcase that is replacing it looks way beefier. The old 150 powerhead was left as intact as possible. I scavenged the bell shaped tuner for the new powerhead. A 7 1/4 inch 225 tuner is available for it, as well as the 150 2 piece adapter plate.

Taking a few pics to post after the job is done. Will be fun to hear it run on the hose but will be freakin' coooooold for the test ride. Was close to zero this morning at the house. Skiing keeps getting better and better at Park City Mountain resort though. Will hope for a warmer day next week for the test ride.

 

[ssv1761982]

Keep us updated. I always worried about launching the truck too on snow and ice covered ramps.

 

[G Allen]

It's done! Was a great learning experience to watch the last of the work being done. The devil was definitely in the details. Ran into a snag on the Bosch fuel pump for the VST deleted fuel plumbing. The outlet side had metric threads and so did the power terminals. Went to a hydraulic hose shop and found what I needed. At the first pop on initial fireup a bit of blue and yellow flame came out of the prop hub...cool! It's a fire breather! Haaaaah!

On to the test tank...A bit of adjustment was needed on the shift linkage to get the new gearcase to shift into reverse as well as forward. During the test run one cylinder head ran colder than the other. The powerhead came with a new pair of 140 degree thermostats in their packages, the old ones looked old and were 120's. After installation of the new units the heads ran evenly, and both in the 130's according to the tech's pyrometer when the thermostats started to open. The water in the test tank was very cold. I was concerned about the motor dying when shifting into gear because of the light weight flywheel, but no problems on that one, idle speed was right where it needed to be, all good.

Am waiting during this pre- holiday season week when business is slow enough for me to be let go for the day at Park City Mountain Resort Ski School, jonesing to get on the water during the warmest part of the day and see how the near new 225 powerhead and redone sportmaster run on water. Hoping that I make it up to the 6750 rpm limiter with the slightly taller 1.87 gears and the Hydromotive Q4 OT 26p prop. Will use three downrigger balls for dialing in the side ballast, around 20-25 pounds. Fingers crossed!

The old 150 powerhead hit around 5800 rpm on that prop through a 2/1 Titus coned 150 preload case at 62mph operating at 6200 ft. altitude... we did a compression test on it, #1-135, #2-125, #3-130, #4-125, #5-135, #6-130. For an early 90's motor these numbers are great, there are a lot more beans left in it! It ran on premix, is available for someone's winter project, sitting in one of the shop's shipping crates ready to go to a new home. The 20" old gearcase would work on something slow with a fully submerged prop, maybe someone's pontoon rig, was glad to not have to use it anymore with a surfacing prop...the skeg having been welded previously.

 

[SLOmofo]

I guess "warmest part of the day" is a relative kind of thing. Warm it up long enough, I've cold seazed a engine pinning it to soon. Gear case oil checked? Prop shaft height checked. Kill switch working? Drain plug in?

 

[G Allen]

Gearcase was filled with the Merc high performance gear lube by Jason Wolf prior to shipment. He put the new parts inside and installed the 20 inch driveshaft as well. Kill switch works, has a lanyard with a clip to the life jacket on it. I use it. Drain plug is out until the boat ramp. Utah and Wyoming prohibit towing with the drain plug in to combat the Quagga and Zebra mussels. Bilge pump works. Fuel pump is mounted low enough in the bilge to self prime quickly. Primer bulb is gone. There is no impediment to fuel flow on the inlet side of that pump, just have a short length of 3/8" hose with gentle bends back to the tank fitting. We set up the fuel hoses to be all 3/8" supply and return to the tank, fuel filtration is on the outlet side of the pump. One of the properties of Blue Marble 2 stoke oil in the premix is that it cleans and keeps fuel injectors and carb jets clean. I also use Sta-bil and Yamaha Ring Free in the premix.

Prop shaft height needs checking. Good call, SlOmofo! Propshaft height was set for center of propshaft even with the pad with the previous, not a sporty gearcase. Have heard 1/4 inch above pad is recommended for that hull, am running 14" setback on a manual jackplate. Motor is a 2.5 promax 225 with a couple minor effect speed parts bolted to the intake and exhaust sides. Limiter is set stock.

Warm up for me is letting the motor idle at the courtesy dock while I park the car above the ramp and walk back down. My motor starts a steady flow out the pee hole when the thermostats begin to open, within five minutes of cold start in cold weather at idle. There is always at least five minute's worth of idling in gear once I pull away from the dock until I get past the low speed buoys on the water, then I plane around 3500 rpm until I see the temp guage get a decent amount over 130 degrees. At higher speeds the temp goes back down, a tad above 130. I can set the midrange to run as lean as I want, but wide open throttle runs rich on a promax at my altitude. I might gain some power with a Brucato setup, but not going to do that in the near future. Have spent enough money for now.

Thanks for the reminder about prop shaft height! Looks like a visit to the local Wal-mart parking lot with a tape measure, level, and wrenches is in my future! My driveway has too much slant.

While the boat sits out of the water covered on the trailer in the cold I keep the motor trimmed down so water from snowstorms and rain can't get in, accumulate, and freeze inside the lower unit behind the prop. We have a snowstorm coming in tomorrow and later this week, so might need to wait a few days more before finishing up the propshaft height thang and do the face freezing test ride. Will mix up a batch of fuel anyway. Most of the time the home lake doesn't ice up til mid January.

 

[ssv1761982]

I would leave the prop shaft even with the pad for now. Until you know how it feels with all the extra power you are better off staying on the safe side. If the water was warm and you had a chase boat I would say go for it. Odds are it won't make 2 mph difference anyhow.

 

[SLOmofo]

Warm up. What I do. Launch fire up leave idling as long as it isn't sneezing. Park rig. Idle out get on plane drive at 2,500 to 3,000 rpm for at least a mile or 2. It takes a long time to heat up and get everything expanded and normalized within the engine.
I still would check the lower unit oil just for shits and giggles.
"Quagga and Zebra mussels" the lake nearest me requires inspection, then they attach a band between boat and trailer. One MONTH later it can go back and launch. Thereafter, it is banded before leaving the lake. InMyHumbleOpinion it's a matter of When not If a lake gets infested. There are lakes here in Calif that are not publicly accessed that have the mussels. Water fowl fly is my guess as to infection.
Whatever you do be very careful. Clipped and zipped anytime the engine is running and in gear is my MO.

 

[silverbullet02]

I would leave the prop shaft even with the pad for now. Until you know how it feels with all the extra power you are better off staying on the safe side. If the water was warm and you had a chase boat I would say go for it. Odds are it won't make 2 mph difference anyhow.

x2! She's also gonna be a different animal once you get her up on the pad too. In the low 60s you still had a bit of boat in the water.

 

[G Allen]

It snowed lightly all day today. Might give it a try day after tomorrow if work is slow and they don't need me...

The hairy eyeball method says it looks like the sporty has the propshaft higher than the old case did. So need to use the tools to make sure that it's not an optical illusion. Am guessing that with the stock limiter at 6750, 26 pitch Hydromotive Q4 OT and 1.87 gears top end will be around 72-75. I'd be surprised if it goes any faster than that. Am planning on working my way up to speed. Getting rid of the river anchor in the ski locker and sticking the downrigger balls in there instead for possible side ballast use. Was perfect before with nothing in the port rod locker after installing the heavier bow mount Ultrex.

 

[gmorgan]

You should be running at least 80 when on the limiter.

 

[G Allen]

Went out and ran it on the home lake for a bit.. Prop shaft height checked out, needed no adjustment. Filled the tank with a fresh batch of premix. Needed a bit more ballast in the port side rod locker. Wind was still water was glass. Hit 72, think that 75 is about all it will want to go. Don't think that I quite hit the limiter. Water temp was 32.4 degrees, air was around 28. I was pleased with how the motor ran. Water pressure guage did not operate because the line was frozen. Stayed on the water for about an hour, then came in. Had a blast, but did not want to push my luck. I would have lived about 4-6 minutes if I had fallen in the lake. Am satisfied in how the boat ran, am satisfied in the fact that I need to learn how to drive better at those higher speeds. Thinking that about 15-25 more pounds of ballast on the port side will help. Likely this was the last run until next spring.

 

[dubmoney]

Hard Core Gary!! Sounds like all your calculations were correct! Hope you make it Shasta, so we can see what she will do at sea level. My 28 ET should be fun to try on your boat at sea level!

 

[SLOmofo]

Sea level plus 1,067' . B and B at the delta is close to sea level. LOL. Anyway as rich as it is at what 5.000 feet I'll run better. I got a 30" A-5 chopper you might try Whitney.

 

[G Allen]

I just found out that I'm off tomorrow. Gonna stick more side ballast in to counter the trimming out a tad more. Gonna mess with the TPS a bit. Was a tad rich in the lower mids today. Not as rich as the other powerhead was, but that 150 had stock throttle linkage and reeds. I have a good idea about where the baseline is for that one now. The new powerhead has aftermarket linkage and reeds. I'm running at 6200 above sea level. Gonna find out if that also has an effect on WFO. SLOmofo, I figgered out how to get it good and warm fairly quickly, found the magic throttle setting at 1500 rpm. Once on plane temp drops to minimum very quickly. Need to keep trim tucked under a bit more coming onto plane when goosing it than before. This new powerhead has a lot of upper mid torque and with the light flywheel revs up VERY quickly and can break the prop loose easily. Gonna start looking at 3 blade fat shaft props. Need a second wheel. Maybe a Hoss 28 will be about right for my altitude. Guessing that a 29 might be a tad tall. I'm figuring that I am losing 25-30% power here between the altitude and promax EFI not compensating well for it.

 

[SLOmofo]

6.200 feet. To quote a line from one of my favorite movies "Used Cars" ..... "Thats to f#@%ing high!" That certainly will have an effect. Atmospheric pressure is WAY less(doesn't push into cylinders) and the air is thin, as in molecules (oxygen) spread farther apart.
I think I was in my 40s the first time I saw white stuff fall out of the sky. Per fishing for a bass tournament at Clear Lake. The next two days it either rained, sleeted or snowed. The next was 2007 ish on my way to "Chemo Monday". Last time was last year in Washington around midnight, went out and played in it for a while.
They wouldn't let me barbecue anything. Shoulda made a snow angel butt it was cold.

 

[G Allen]

It took three tries to get the TPS dialed in on the water. Have it just barely rich enough to not die in the 1800-3000 lower mids. Roll on the throttle, hold it there, wait a coupla seconds for it to gently spool up, then it gets on the pipe and surges like a bull getting goosed by a cattle prod. Hard to keep it from breaking the prop loose, even tucked under.

The side ballast is dialed now, but need to get better at driving it at 60 plus. Did some fishing today, had a long line release within 15 minutes. Was a gorgeous 2 1/2 pound-ish rainbow with beautiful coloring. I got to see it, that was good enough, will have another chance to catch it.

Weather is going to put a high pressure over us for a few days, getting warmer each afternoon. Boating season is not over just yet. Need to stick a spark plug wrench in , have a partial can of fogging oil and rag already sitting in the rod locker for the last haul out of the water.

I suspect that the lip is not what it once was out of the mold, and the back of it is chipped in a couple places towards the middle. It is pretty much not there except for about 4 inches in the middle of the pad. There are a couple long slightly diagonal scratches on the bottom of the pad towards the back as well. That can not be good for higher speed handling. Looks like I get to learn how to give the bottom some love... along with a thorough buffing of the top. There is 40-50 hours worth of getting some shine back before Shasta. The hull will be 30 years old next season and looks like it has had a decent amount of water time.