Opinions on hours on HO motors? When old?

[FREIND OF AA AND TA]

How many hours is too much? At what point are you not interested or question the reliabilty? How many hours have you seen on yours? What problems have you had at how many hours? So many of us have them I am sure you guys have seen it all.
Thanks
I have 199 hours on mine and they sound and act like new. Usual impeller changes and they are awesome!!

[Havasu_Dreamin]

I would think the 496, assuming you do regular maintenance, should easily last until 400-500 hours before any serious work would need to be performed. The best guys to ask are at the convention center until Sunday.....

[Daytona100]

I believe a 100 hours is equal to 15 or 30k on a car probably still pretty fresh. Keep an eye on oil consumption a pretty good indicator on the condition of the engine.

[FREIND OF AA AND TA]

I believe a 100 hours is equal to 15 or 30k on a car probably still pretty fresh. Keep an eye on oil consumption a pretty good indicator on the condition of the engine.
Thats interesting. I have never heard of that. I have always changed the oil twice during the season and it never has changed enough to notice.

[blown65]

I think there is more to it than just that. It would depend if the person was doing 4000-5000 the entire life of the engine or if it idles 50% of its life.
I know we do short blasts in ours but I'd say other than warmup idle, we cruise around 3000-3500 in ours. Look at the Ski boats with them, same deal, 3000-3500 its entire life and you see them with 1000k hrs often.
I know the loading is probably different, but 100hrs = 30k miles seems off to me. 100hrs at 100 miles an hour is 10k miles. If you drove those entire 10k miles at that speed I'd bet the wear would be similar.

[Beer-30]

With the closed cooling and such up to date bearings and rings, I would say 1000 would be MINIMUM. Properly treated, the motor should have no problems getting to 12-1500 hrs. I would update the valvesprings with good ones after about 200 hrs., and maybe one more time through life.
Once again, if an AIR-COOLED (hard on engines) big-inch turbocharged SIX-CYLINDER aircraft motor can go 2000-2500 hours time-between-overhaul (TBO); then there is no reason a closed-cooled eight-cylinder shouldn't get at least close to that number. The propellor on a plane is bolted right to the crank, so they are under a load 100% of the time, even when decending. A boat motor actually should have much longer expectency, as there is a lot of light load idle time. Aircraft are still swinging that big prop around at idle.

[TCHB]

I had over 1000 hours on our old Sanger Ski boat with no sign of engine problems. Compression never never changed!
I. How many hours spent at WOT and how long held at WOT
2. How many hours at idle
3. Was it ever overheated?
4. Oil Change Schedule
I think if you treat them with a little respect they will go a lot longer than most people think they can go.

[FREIND OF AA AND TA]

Anybody have problems with them? Any storys?

[phebus]

I've got over 300 trouble free hours. I've always done impeller, oil, and filter changes religously.

[Raylar]

Friend of AA and TA:
If you own one stop worrying and enjoy it. Just do good service and you'll see more hours than you'll own the boat. If you're thinking of buying a boat with a 496 thats been properly maintained and checked out before purchase stop worrying, by the boat and enjoy! If you're thinking of buying a new boat with a 496 you'll be joining a huge club (1000's) of happy owners! If you need more power for a 496, call or come see us, we seem to be pretty good at doing that. 496's are awesome economical high performance marine engines! I am sure their might be a few owners who expierenced some sort of problems, but if you compare the number of 496's in use versus 496's with problems the numbers are almost miniscule. The 496 motors now enjoy the largest number of in service big blocks with the fewest number of problems in the industry! Thats a fact jack!
Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

[Havasu1986]

I think he's more interesed in the boat he's selling with those motors. IMHO.:D

[TrojanDan]

381 hours in about four years on our 496 HO. Starts everytime and runs great. I have the impeller changed every year and engine oil and filter every 20 hrs. Like stated before, do a scan on the engine and you'll see how many of those hours are at idle or just above. 100 boat hrs = 15k-30k car miles is way off.
I spend more money on my drive (upper U joint, bellow change, alignment service) than I do on my engine.

[HocusPocus]

this is a great question.. i have been wondering the same thing. what about the 525.. would it fall into the same numbers or because of the HP would it be different?