I have been reading the forum for a while now and used some of the advice I read to pick a used boat, thanks DonS. It is a 1980 Renken, 19'7" bowrider. It has a Volvo Penta AQ120B and 270 drive that had 540 total hours on it. I paid $2350 for it and most repairs have gone into the trailer and upholstery. It runs pretty good and I haven't had any major problems except I have replaced the alternator(used off ebay), timing belt, and ignition coil. I also had to fabricate a flame arrestor for the solex side draft. I am leaking a bit of oil from the valve cover since replacing the timing belt because I used permatex so I need to get a replacement gasket.
As far as cooling goes I leak coolant from the tank cap(cant seem to seal well) and possibly one of the exchanger connections. The engine runs at 5200RPM WOT and makes 27MPH(GPS) but quickly(3-4 minutes) pushes into the hot zone overheating territory. If I leave throttle at 4800 it stays steady 190F and gives me 24MPH. My question is, is 24MPH fast enough for a skier and should I look at a different prop pitch to keep the WOT engine speed down to 4800? Or should I be able to get better cooling to run at 5200RPM?
Thanks in advance. I think I got a pretty good deal and will try to contribute to the forum
As far as cooling goes I leak coolant from the tank cap(cant seem to seal well) and possibly one of the exchanger connections. The engine runs at 5200RPM WOT and makes 27MPH(GPS) but quickly(3-4 minutes) pushes into the hot zone overheating territory. If I leave throttle at 4800 it stays steady 190F and gives me 24MPH. My question is, is 24MPH fast enough for a skier and should I look at a different prop pitch to keep the WOT engine speed down to 4800? Or should I be able to get better cooling to run at 5200RPM?
Thanks in advance. I think I got a pretty good deal and will try to contribute to the forum
