Fresh water cooling in a 30' express cruiser?

[goblehipcom]

I'm in the market for an early 2000 express cruiser (Regal 2960 or 3060 is my first choice). I'm up in the Seattle area and plan to keep the boat in fresh water but do overnight trips in salt water. All the boats I'm looking at have twin Mercruiser or Volvo/Penta 5.0 gas V8s I/Os.

I've looked at a lot of boats online (all over the country) and barely any have fresh water cooling...even ones that are moored in salt water.

My dad could not even believe that boats this size have raw water cooling. We talked with a boat guy we know and he strongly recommended getting a boat with fresh water cooling.

One problem is that I can barely find any boats that have it...so this greatly reduces my selection.

What are other people's opinions on the subject of fresh water cooling for a 30' express cruiser with twin V8s?

Thanks for any feedback,
-Brian

 

[ziggy]

Re: Fresh water cooling in a 30' express cruiser?

if i thought i was gonna take my boat in salt water, i think i'd wanna have fwc too......anything to help it last longer........ i think yer on the right track. wait till ya find what ya want.......patience is a virtue ya know.......

 

[j_cizzo]

Re: Fresh water cooling in a 30' express cruiser?

I'm in the market for an early 2000 express cruiser (Regal 2960 or 3060 is my first choice). I'm up in the Seattle area and plan to keep the boat in fresh water but do overnight trips in salt water. All the boats I'm looking at have twin Mercruiser or Volvo/Penta 5.0 gas V8s I/Os.

I've looked at a lot of boats online (all over the country) and barely any have fresh water cooling...even ones that are moored in salt water.

My dad could not even believe that boats this size have raw water cooling. We talked with a boat guy we know and he strongly recommended getting a boat with fresh water cooling.

One problem is that I can barely find any boats that have it...so this greatly reduces my selection.

What are other people's opinions on the subject of fresh water cooling for a 30' express cruiser with twin V8s?

Thanks for any feedback,
-Brian

well i can tell you all you need to know, from experience...

first off, you must make sure your fresh-water pump (the pump on the engine) is in good shape. being in the salt will reduce its performance, it's cheap insurance to buy a new one, and since antifreeze will be circulating through it, you can settle with a standard automotive one from carquest, i personally bought a high-capacity one and i'll tell ya why:

over-heating won't be a problem so much when you're under way as it will be when you come to rest after you've been cruising, so you need a good amount of volume to resist the heat build-up coming off throttle. I think you will be fine with just a new water pump, like i said, go to carquest or order one online, it's cheap insurance.

now the biggest thing you have to deal with, and i CANNOT stress this enough (and i know this from experience), you simply CANNOT get the inside of that engine clean enough! don't worry about the corrosion just yet, i'm talking about MUD AND SAND! you HAVE to get all that out, and it will take a while! if you don't, as soon as your engine starts running at the proper temperature, all that gunk will sluff off into the coolant passages and clog them up, probably right around the head gasket cooling orifaces, then even when your temp gauge says 170 degrees or what ever, you'll have blown a head gasket... like i said, i'm telling you this from experience! first time out in my boat, it hit 200 degrees and "poof"! no head gasket should pop at 200 degrees, so when i pulled the head off, i found all the steam holes completely plugged with mud.

just get the block professionally flushed, which should be possible without pulling the engine, just need some chemicals, and you should be fine. and if you're even mildly innovative, you don't need to spend all that money on one of those kits, you can peice it together on your own and save a few hundred if not more....

let me know, i'd be glad to help!

 

[Haut Medoc]

Re: Fresh water cooling in a 30' express cruiser?

Welcome to iboats......
Good to see some new Seattle blood.....
That's good advice, but......
Generally speaking, a standard cooled engine that is over one year old or over 100 hours is not a candidate for fresh water cooling according to Merc.....
Basically for the reasons j_cizzo stated.......
The reason you see so many standard cooled engines is $....
Pennywise & pound foolish IMO, especially in salt water...
But, the cost of the heat exchanger adds at least a G note to the overall cost at purchase.....
Same thing with the 5.0's, less co$t at purchase.....
I'd be looking for 5.7's for a boat that size or better yet 7.4's, that all ready have closed cooling.......
If I were you, I'd wait until the boat show next month & keep your eyes open.......
People moving up in size will be trading in & you might get a good deal if you are patient ....
& check out the bulletin board as well......
& ebay as a cheap reference point.......
The economy is not soft up here like other places, but I forsee some good deals coming up as these mortgage resets take place & one must choose between a boat or a place to live......
JMHO, your mileage may vary......​

 

[j_cizzo]

Re: Fresh water cooling in a 30' express cruiser?

regarding finding a boat that has fresh water cooling; i completely agree, if you can find one, go for it, even if the engine is shot, you can still rebuild it, it makes no sense whatsoever to rebuild an engine that has had salt run through it for more than a couple of seasons.

in my experience it does take saltwater to corrode a cast iron engine some time, so i don't agree with what mercruiser says. and from what i've heard others say, i wouldn't trust them anyway, merc is not what i would consider "an honest-to-God, good company", they don't necessarily make their living by being innovative, at least from my experience...

if the engine is several years old, i'd say you should be fine, just flush the hell out of it, fill it with water, bring it up to 170-180 degrees (not out on the water mind you, do it in your driveway or something), and then drain it, flush with water, and then repeat, as steam pockets form between the mud and cylinders, the mud will sluff off and dissolve into the circulating water, then when you flush it, it will flow out as just very dirty water... i didn't do this enough and "POP!!"... it's a tough process, but it can be done.. you will have to do this repeatedly.

 

[j_cizzo]

Re: Fresh water cooling in a 30' express cruiser?

oh, and regarding power, the more the better.. stay away from 5.0's, to me that says the previous owner was too cheap to buy a proper engine. that's what happened to me, my boat is 24' 4600lbs unloaded and dry, and that 5.0 (230hp) was not nearly enough to power it. i don't think you'll see much of a difference in fuel economy with a big block versus a small block, maybe the difference of a gallon or two an hour, only b/c since a big block makes so much more torque, you'll be swinging a bigger prop, thus displacing that much more water per prop revolution, therefor the engines will be turning at a lower rpm for a given speed, so it will almost equal out.

remember, it takes the same amount of air and fuel to make a certain amount of power, be it big block or small block, but when the going gets 'whatever', a bigblock can ingest that much more air and fuel b/c of it's displacement, so it makes the either the same power at a lower rpm of a small block, or more power at the same rpm as said small block...

hope that help...

sorry for the rambling, i'm an engine finatic and i can go on and on about the theories and what not...

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: Fresh water cooling in a 30' express cruiser?

Howdy,

I added closed cooling to my 1997 454/Bravo before I installed it. (San Juan Engr ....It was about $700 incl shipping))

The engine was sitting on a stand when I did it and I had the circulating pump and all the soft plugs removed for flushing.

I removed a LOT of sand, rust, and other debris from the block. The engine had about 120hrs on it and was never ran in salt. There was so much sand in the lower part of the block that the drain valve on 1 side was almost covered by the level of the sand/debris.

Even after running it about 3 or 4 hrs, I have noticed that there's still a small amount of rust in the coolant now and I'll probably have to flush it a couple more times before it completely clears out.


I wouldn't buy another boat without closed cooling or put an engine in without it.

The engines generally run better and last longer all the way around with it.



Cheers,

Rick