1998 FF build

I am building a 1998 200 FF block Motor I bought. I thought it spun when I bought it. But now I could only turn the flywheel about 3/4 of the way around. It has one piston, #3, that detonated and transferred a lot of aluminum to the cylinder walls. Attachment 542058 I took it apart to make sure the block isn't broken near the bottom of the cylinder where the piston locks up. It's not. There sure is a lot of aluminum stuck to the walls. Attachment 542059 I don't see any real deep scores in the sleeve. I used muriatic acid to remove the aluminum from the cylinder. Took about 10 coats to get it all off. Attachment 542060 I can hardly feel any rough spots on the walls now. I haven't even tried to hone it yet. I am probably going to have to bore it, but I will hone and measure it first. Cylinder #1 also has 1 scratch I don't think is going to hone out. Attachment 542056 I will probably have to bore that one too. I will definitely have to change the piston. Attachment 542057 Everything else looks good. A couple tiny chips on the reeds. But they will get changed anyway.

My plan is to rebuild it with all the basics. New rings, metal rod bearings, upgraded rod bolts. Undecided on forged pistons or not. They tend get expensive and this needs to be a budget build. But if I can get them at a good price, then maybe. I am also going to do some work to the block. Port the exhaust chest. Open the outlets to match the big hole gasket. same with the adapter plates. I have not decided if I am going to raise the exhaust ports slightly or not. I don't plan to spin it much more than 6500 RPM anyway. I have a Bobs exhaust tuner already. Open the rod slots and smooth all the casting marks with minimal material removal. Either Boyeson or Chris Carson reeds. Smooth the cages as well as sand them flat. Mill the front half .050. Maybe still use stuffers if they fit. Then I am going to have to upgrade the ECU. I think finding a ProMax 200 ECU would be the most affordable way to go. But I think I want either a Brucato or a PPE. This build is going to take some time. There is a lot of work to do, and I can only do so much. I have to get parts as I can afford them. I will update as I go along.

Sounds like a solid plan. I don’t think you need to mess with exhaust port height especially if you’re looking to keep the rpm below 7000 it’s likely to hurt performance, not help. These FF sleeves are great mine spins over 7k easy and the sleeves are bone stock. Raise the compression up a bit is the biggest gain you’re going to get and power improves across the board. Everything sounds solid I did most of that and really like the performance on mine. Don’t forget the essentials; oil injection delete and black box delete. I would have the injectors cleaned and flowed too

give me a call,I have some good info for you,305-394-3354,Chris

I spoke with Chris Carson. He is a really nice guy. He gave me some really good information. He said when a piston transfers aluminum like that, it means it got really hot. There is now carbon built up between the cylinder liner and the aluminum block. It will cause a heat transfer problem and that cylinder will run hot. I could bore it out and it will look fine. Probably be ok with a fishing motor. But for a high-performance motor, I need to put an oversize sleeve in it. I also measured the rest of the cylinders with my dial bore gauge. They are all right on the edge of tolerance at .002-.003 out of round. They are all going to have to be bored out. Chris made me a great deal. He is going to sleeve it, bore it and give me a new set of pinned pistons. The price he gave me is way cheaper than I expected. Plus, I am going to send him a load of hard parts for a discount on the cash price. I have to do all the porting I am going to do before I send it off to him. This is my first attempt at porting. So, I will be using a couple junk blocks I have to practice on. I am not going to touch the cylinder ports. Just the exhaust chest and rod slots. Plus clean up any rough casting marks and sharp edges so everything flows nice and smooth.

That’s great! I had read about this mysterious sleeve overheat issue before but never with the explanation as to when it happens and what the issue is so thanks for letting us know. Very interesting.


The porting is easy just be sure to use single cut burrs made for aluminum or it will chatter like crazy and not go very well. When working on the chest dump hole if your going to use your fishing motor mid plate you have to port that as well as the block so the shape lines up properly. If you just port the block exit to what looks good by eye it will have a crashing angle into the plate. It’s easy to see this if you place the plate on the block and look into the chest. Some guys suggest the rear block area where the two little studs bolt down is prone to cracking when ported so they leave it extra thick. Not fully the size of the large hi-performance gasket opening. I had already opened mine up fully before learning this. So far so good. Don’t forget to clean casting flash up around the block too and in the intake. Tiny little details but might add up to a hp or two. I always figure its best approach is to focus on small gains everywhere you can find them vs trying to add huge gains with one mod. Kind of like shaving weight in racing the saying goes look to shave ounces, not pounds. It makes the process easy to understand and the end result is more effective. All that said, the increase in compression made the biggest gains for me. That really wakes these things up.

Chris is exactly right about heat transfer on cyl that's been hot. That's y alot of people will bore or hone a cyl and put new piston in and motor only last 10 or 20 hours b4 same cyl goes down again. Seen it many times , Chris is very knowledgeable and great guy to deal with , he will get you fixed up , just b careful on the porting , it can go bad quick and you not even know it. Good luck

I did a little porting practice on a scrap block. I only did one section of the exhaust chest. It's more about technique than the actual porting. Using a die grinder with burrs is really hard on my hands. I used it for 15 minutes and the vibrations and jerking when the burr catches and chatters made my hands swell up. I have very bad tendons thanks to taking a lot of Ciprofloxacin for a bad bacterial infection. I basically have tendonitis everywhere. Had over a dozen tendons rupture. So I am improvising and will be doing most of the porting with a 1/2" belt grinder. It's a lot easier to use. With 36 grit it sands the aluminum down pretty quick. It doesn't jerk chatter or vibrate and comes out smooth. I will still need to use the burrs in some spots. But I can do the bulk with the grinder.

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The right burrs make all the difference on chatter. I also prefer to use a pencil grinder whenever possible due to its weight/mass it’s a lot less likely to chatter and easier to control with two hands. Air power die grinders are a bit punishing for so much cutting. Opening the dump hole and the plate is a lot of cutting.

Getting there. Rod slots and exhaust chest basically is done. Maybe some touchups after I clean it up. I still need to do the exhaust dump. There is a lot of grinding to do there.Attachment 542616 Attachment 542617Attachment 542618 Attachment 542619

Exhaust dump is done. I only opened up the front of the ports. I left the area near the studs alone because I heard that area is prone to cracking if you make it to thin. I filled in the oil gear galley with 3 coats of Marine Tex. Took an old crank sealing ring and it put in a ring galley in the block to compress it to the right size. Then I clamped a vice grip on the split so it would stay compressed. I used that as a guide to shape the marine tex. Then I tried an old crankshaft. It pretty close. 4th coat is applied and drying.

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Lookin good by my eye. Only thing I noticed that I thought worth a mention is the dump hole cutting. Initially I opened my dump to the same shape as that. It looks right when looking into the block. Then I put the plate on and realized I had a wave going on and needed to straighten it out. I think I posted pics in my build thread for reference but stuff your plate on and look down through both. You want the hole to be aligned and parallel all the way through

Oil pump fill in is as good as I am going to get it. Conforms to the crankshaft pretty good. I port matched the upper adapter plate to the block. Then I put the exhaust cover in place. Looking through the upper adapter plate, there was a little ledge where it met the block so I blended that too. I barely touched the cover. Time to pack it up and ship it off to Chris.
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Started to prep some other parts while waiting for my block to come back. I cleaned up the casting marks on the intake. I used my Dremel and while I was at it I noticed how terrible the reed blocks meet the manifold. Not a smooth transition at all. So, I port matched the intake to the reed blocks. The red blocks themselves are very square. So next I am going to take the reed blocks apart and round and smooth the inside corners of the blocks.

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Yeah there’s definitely a lot of casting flash in these motors. Worth cleaning it all up it can’t hurt and it’s fun to do.

Well I think my plan for this to be a budget build has gone out the window. I just picked up a 7 petal front half from a 2.5 240 HP Sport jet. Should bolt right on my FF block. The only real difference I see is there is 1 less bleed fitting on the 7 petal front. The way the EFI bleed system is routed, it wont matter if I bypass it. Or I could drill it and install the fitting. Just got to make sure the crankshaft sealing rings don't bind. The 5 petal front has a little more wear then the 7 petal. The guy said there was some damage on it. So I negotiated pretty hard with him. I thought I was going to have to repair it. Didn't realize the damage was already fixed. Not perfect, but good enough to be used the way it is.

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I have a blown front half of a '99 FF blocks if you want that paperweight too :D

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Originally Posted by skialot2

Well I think my plan for this to be a budget build has gone out the window. I just picked up a 7 petal front half from a 2.5 240 HP Sport jet. Should bolt right on my FF block. The only real difference I see is there is 1 less bleed fitting on the 7 petal front. The way the EFI bleed system is routed, it wont matter if I bypass it. Or I could drill it and install the fitting. Just got to make sure the crankshaft sealing rings don't bind. The 5 petal front has a little more wear then the 7 petal. The guy said there was some damage on it. So I negotiated pretty hard with him. I thought I was going to have to repair it. Didn't realize the damage was already fixed. Not perfect, but good enough to be used the way it is.

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I was just talking to my machinist about promax block and it had sealing ring land broke off and tore up , said it could be fixed but will take alot of work ( welding and re cutting etc) just make sure the repair is done right

I obviously misunderstood what the guy was saying about this 7 petal front. I thought it still needed repair. Apparently he meant it was repaired a long time ago. This is not a new repair. it is old. It has been used in a rebuilt motor already. The crankshaft sealing ring fits perfectly.

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I spoke to Chris the other day. He said he should be sending my block back to me next week. All the hard parts I sent him will cover 5/6 of the bill. Now that I am using a 7 petal front, I am getting the pistons with thin rings. 1.5mm vs 2mm. I should be able to spin this motor up pretty high without a problem.:D

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Originally Posted by blackmaxonly

I have a blown front half of a '99 FF blocks if you want that paperweight too :D

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I have a front half from a 1996 150 you can have. It has the same casting number as my 1998 FF front half.

I picked up a 7 petal reed manifold to go with my 7 petal front. It came with 5 out of 6 reed blocks. So I bought 1 new block. Now comparing them, they are different. Looks like someone milled down the 5 blocks. They squared off the ports to make them flow better. I am going to have to try to match them by hand.


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early teardrop cage. The bigger one is the later HP cages.

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Originally Posted by rjdubiel

early teardrop cage. The bigger one is the later HP cages.

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I wish that was the case. The 7 petal teardrop cages are correct by part number for a 2000 240 Sportjet. I can not find any factory squared off 7 petal reed blocks. These look like someone milled them down. There is a squared off high performance 5 petal reed used on the later 240 Sportjets. But no factory squared off 7 petal reeds that I can find. But if you can find me a block that matches the other five, I would be interested in it.

Thats interesting. The seven petal adds a lot of power at high RPM. I wonder how much more those ported cages make?

they are actually really "BIG" 5 petals...

1 Mercury Outboard Sportjet Seadoo 240 EFI M2 2.5 Reed Valve Cage Reed Block Oem | eBay

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Originally Posted by LakeFever

Thats interesting. The seven petal adds a lot of power at high RPM. I wonder how much more those ported cages make?

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I am wondering that myself. :D

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Originally Posted by tlwjkw

they are actually really "BIG" 5 petals...

1 Mercury Outboard Sportjet Seadoo 240 EFI M2 2.5 Reed Valve Cage Reed Block Oem | eBay

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Yes they are big. I believe they are 7 petal size in a 5 petal configuration. I wonder if they are interchangeable like the 4/5 petal reeds?

yeah.. same as tha seven... they were and as for what i know, still tha most desired for tha big boy hot rods..... think they were only for a coupla years then they got really scarce.. we hoarded them like back yard squirrels................

If I faced your situation I’d try and rig up a fixture for my die grinder and port the new one to match. I’d make the fixture so it would rest the cutter at the exact same height and angle as the ported ones. I’d mount the cage to a flat surface. Something smooth so it would slide easy then make stops to limit side-side travel the width of the desired port cut. Essentially creating a fixture for the die grinder and the cage so the only place movement can happen is in the desired cut area. I don’t have a mill so I have to get crafty now and the with farmer tech

Chris called today. My block is done. Everything came out good. He said it a real good thing I changed the sleeve. there was so much carbon in between the sleeve and the block casting a .020 oversize sleeve was still too small. He also said I did a real good job closing up the oil injection hole. Too bad he destroyed it when he heated the block to 450 degrees to install the sleeve. I am going to have to redo it. I should have used J-B weld. Its good for 500 degrees. But Marine-Tex is only good for 250. I got two tracking numbers. 1 for the block. The other for all the parts I ordered from him. UPS has the packages. They will be here Monday. I still don't know how much I owe him on top of the crapload of used parts I sent him.

Chris strongly suggests I stick with the original 4 petal reed front. He said unless I am planning to rev it up over 8K, It will have a better holeshot and pull harder thru the midrange with the 4 petal front. I have no plans to rev this thing to 8k and beyond. So, I am going to take his advice and stick with the original 4 petal front. I am getting his reeds and stuffers along with most of the rest of the parts I need to build it.

Are you going carb or efi? I’m currently running the four petal it’s good but my next build is going to be a seven petal. Efi both. Guess I’m going to find out the performance differences. My four petal pulls hard to 6000 rpm I can out accelerate most boats but it works hard for rpm after 6. I have managed 7500 before but I’m hoping the 7 petal opens things up after 6000.

My 7 pedal Promax seems to pull strong to about 6800RPM before it seems to be past the HP peak... Doesn't really want to pull even a 26p very far past 7k... This is on an XB03

if its still tha stock ECU thats all ya gonna get........... ya lucky ta get 7 grand.

I’m running a chipped 225 promax ecu the limiter is set to 7600 iirc it might be 7800. In the cold air it pulls to 7 easy but in most day to day conditions it really falls off after 6. It still moves but it no longer pulls. I’m working on the new build and I want that thing to haul the mail to 7 with ease or better. I think it’s the four petal holding me back or maybe the stock canned fishing mid. Next motor is getting a smooth back too with a 260 tuner and the single plate. Pulling all the stops I can within reason at least. Met a guy who had a 370hp 2.5 build. Punched out block to 2.7 using custom sleeves. Ran 127 on a mirage. Crazy. I ain’t going that nuts

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Originally Posted by tlwjkw

if its still tha stock ECU thats all ya gonna get........... ya lucky ta get 7 grand.

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Its got a Brucatto. I set the limiter at 7500.

sometimes tha brucatto isn't all its cracked up ta be.. they miss tha mark every once in awhile... ya might wanna get her ta check it... jmo

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Originally Posted by aj06bolt12r

Its got a Brucatto. I set the limiter at 7500.

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How much tuning have you done with the fuel curve on the Brucato? Bucato cannot send out a tune that will hurt a motor. So if you are at sea level in FL or at 1250 feet of elevation at Lake Mead in AZ, Brucato sends you both the same curve. Its up to the customer to blow up their engine by playing with the settings or changing the curve with a computer. To me your RPM is maxed at the current fuel settings. or you need more compression.

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Originally Posted by rjdubiel

How much tuning have you done with the fuel curve on the Brucato? Bucato cannot send out a tune that will hurt a motor. So if you are at sea level in FL or at 1250 feet of elevation at Lake Mead in AZ, Brucato sends you both the same curve. Its up to the customer to blow up their engine by playing with the settings or changing the curve with a computer. To me your RPM is maxed at the current fuel settings. or you need more compression.

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Compression is 140-145ish... Its probably still a little rich but I'm afraid to pull any more fuel. EGTs are into the 1200's at WOT as it is. I've tried slightly leaner and EGTs go up but top speed or RPM doesn't change. Piston crowns still look slightly rich to me but I'm not an expert at reading them and I'm not willing to do a true WOT plug chop because... Allison... Id love to tune it on a dyno.

This is an EFI motor. Right now I only have a couple stock ECU's. an A8 and a A30 The A8 came with the motor and the A30 came from a 2001 2.5 200. But I am thinking about buying a Brucato and maybe a steamwheel.

From what i hear, I have never done it, so it's just hearsay, if you really want these motors to rev up you need to raise the exhaust ports. It is supposed to shift the powerband higher and you can really wind them up. But you lose some low end torque.

Post a pic of plugs #2+5. Better yet should start a fresh thread we be hijacking skialots build here