mounting an early 1980's 200 on a 2002 280 mid with one piece exhaust plate - cooling

[Mike Nass]

I know this kind of question has been asked a hundred times and i went through them all last night, but just wanted to ask it in my own words specific to my problem...

Here's the deal... i have a bone stock, what i beleive to be an early or mid 1980's 200 (SN A192229) and a 2002 mint 280 mid with a one piece tuner... i want to mount the powerhead on the tuner/mid and keep it as reliable as possible. I don't want to do any hot rodding of anything at this point. I understand there will be some cooling issues if i just mount it and go??? What changes need to be done to make it work reliably?

I also do have a 1 peice mid 1990's pro max plate/tuner that i could use, but would prefer to stick with the one piece as i intend to drop a 260 on the mid at a later time.

Thanks for you help in advance... I really appreciate it.

cheers,

mike

[laglass69]

On that motor I think you will have to use a 2 piece plate to avoid cooling problems. Since you will be removing the powerhead anyway when you drop the 260 on, just swap it out with the 1 piece adapter at that time. Its a simple change over. Jay Smith once told me that if you have a non-racing powerhead(260,280,drag) on a 1 piece plate you will always have cooling problems.

[Mike Nass]

thanks laglass69... I am leaning that way as well... it would be nice to keep the 1 peice, but more important to keep it running correctly... the 2 peice for the pro max is slightly different that the original 2 piece from the 200 where the water exits via hose out the side on the original vs. out the rear of the promax one...

btw, i can' use the original 2 piece as i am going to have to hack it up to get the powerhead off... it's stuck badddddd!

cheers,

mike