Re: 1987 Four Winns 211 Liberator
Hi Ben,
It's really not that hard. There's really no PIA factor other than you have to have a lift capable of picking up the engine etc.
The transom cutout is the same. You do have to probably do a little glassing in the transom area since Four Winns did a terrible fiberglass job there. The transom drain on mine allowed water to almost completely fill the transom with water and oil. The good thing was since there was oil in the water it didn't rot the transom. It took me about 2 or 3 months to completely dry out the transom enough to reglass it in there....I also filled a pretty big void below the transom and above the lower fiberglass in the bottom with marine epoxy mixed with "milled fiberglass.
The only difference in the cutout is the 2 additional bolt holes that must be drilled for the Bravo. (it has 8 to the Kobra 6)
According to my brother this boat (with the 460/King, 1.43:1 & 20p prop) did 60 mph at 5000 rpm (max rpm + 200) when new. It was always very slow out of the hole.... That 460 is very heavy. He ran it from 1987 to about 2005 when he sold it to me......when I found out I couldn't buy exhaust manifolds or a coupler (I think they're available now though) I started looking for a replacement engine/drive. I considered everything. including new VP 8.1/Duoprop and Mercruiser 496/Bravo X etc. ($22,000-24000 for those
)
A couple winters ago we had a huge wind storm and after that I found a 23' 1998 Bayliner in Craigslist that was hit by a tree. The guy wanted to sell the engine/drive etc... I bought everything including the complete wiring harness, gages, controls, etc.
I didn't use his gages since mine were new Teleflex replaced by my brother only a year or 2 before. (any gages will work,....they're standard)
I could have even used my old OMC wiring harness but the newer Mercruiser harness has a few additional wires in it for the oil/temp/ drive oil alarm system. His harness was "unmolested" and the the old Four Winns wiring looked like a 5 year old wired it so I ripped it ALL out!!!
I also replaced my throttle/shift control with a new Teleflex CH1700 control and new cables (you need Mercury cables)
Now with the 454/Bravo III it does about 57mph(GPS) at WOT (4600 rpm, 26P props 1.81:1 drive)
My brother was up here from Ca last OCT and he wanted to drive it so we took it to the local lake. He said it goes about as fast as it did (who can tell 3mph?) but he said it comes out of the hole and accelerates more than twice as fast as it EVER did with the 460. He said all the liberators are a little slow out of the hole. (maybe with a small block it's better because it's lighter in the back?)
There's no doubt that it might be a little faster with a Bravo I but it does just ROCKET out of the hole now!
I think a great combination would be an aluminum 383 with aluminum manifolds and elbows..... and a Bravo III........actually I am sort of looking for a 502. With aluminum heads, manifolds and risers, it would probably weigh about the same as an iron small block, but have massive HP!
It's a lot of fun to drive now!!
By the way, Your drive should be a 1.41:1 ratio if it's original ..... my King is 1.43:1..... I plugged your numbers into a
prop slip calculator. Without a verified speedo and tach the numbers aren't very meaningful......but your drive with 4800 rpm (max for your engine) 19p prop should produce 52mph with 15% slip (common for a single prop......)
After you verify your speedo with GPS and your tach you can calculate your slip very acurrately with that calculator.
Cheers,
Rick
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