98 200FF build, lots of pics. lots of questions, hopefully not lots of mistakes!

[blackmaxonly]

Did you go back over the 80grit with a finer grit or was that the final finish? Thanks!

[LakeFever]

I left them 80. The surface of the block is a lot rougher than 80 I can easily feel the machining marks with my thumbnail.

Made some progress the past few days on the engine. I gapped on the coil/regulator relocating to fit the race cover. I began with a plan of removing four bolts from the rear cover and making a 1/8” thick hard aluminum plate to go over the rear that would hold the coils and the regulators like they come on 260’s. That didn’t last long before I whipped the rear cover off. After a couple rethinks I ended up cutting all the stud bosses off the rear cover flush and then deciding to simply bolt the entire coil plate down with the rear cover. This requires some slightly longer bolts. I drilled a tapped the coil plate to hold the #10 screws and I cut the screw heads off making them into studs. I threaded the studs into the coil plate flush with red gel loctite and used jam nuts to really hold them in tight. I snagged the coil covers off my XR4 parts motor. Quite a bit of work into this piece

[LakeFever]

Well my one piece design didn’t work out. It will fit no problem but I have to install the heads first and I would have to remove the whole rear cover assembly to remove a head. I didn’t like that so I cut the plate into two and now I only have to pop the top bolts out to remove the regulator bracket to get the heads on/off.

[LakeFever]

Got the heads bolted up with Chris Carson studs. Red gel loctite on the block threads, ARP ultra torque on the nuts. Torqued down 10,20, final pass 30’lbs. Installed rear cover and coil bracket. Mounted up the coils and installed the plugs. New poppet valve

[LakeFever]

One last post to update this thread. For break in I ran three heat cycles on the hose in the driveway idling for 30’mins and let completely cool down between runs. Then I ran it in the lake and had what I thought to be over heating problems and all that turned out to be is autometer marine gauges reading way higher than actual. The Merc port head sender must have a different ohm sweep than the autometer gauge is calibrated for. It reads 180 when the engine is at 143. I had quite a few other small gremlins to chase during shakedown. The install went straight forward but I had not set the solid motor mounts down with a dead blow hammer while supporting the mid so the two adapter plates didn’t seal properly and I had water leaking out around the mounts. That cost me four hours and a bit of money and a few days waiting for parts. I also had issues with the racing cowl and plumbing in the exh cavity water port on the rear of the adapter plate. The fix was two 45 degree fittings. Then once i had that all sorted i had high water pressure issues which was poppet and the plate the cowl mounts to needed an opening enlarged. This again cost me four hours of work and a few more days waiting for gaskets. I ordered spares this time lol. Also regarding the tach I had forget to change the pulse to 12 so if anyone references this thread be sure to do that.

Then after all that and all the starts and heat cycles I started running the boat around varying throttle from idle up to about 4000rpm or so and back. I didn’t lean into it once until I had run 30 gallons of fuel through it. Mixed the break in fuel at 32:1 the motor ran without a blip.

Then I started opening it up some and it easily pulled a 27 pitch et cut tempest up to 78mph gps on the stock lower and not long runs either. 15 seconds or so each pass that’s about it I’m sure I can spin in higher on the stock computer yet. Next engine is going to be a 260 ported steel sleeve