Many jet questions

[73SangerSuperJet]

http://www.geocities.com/muffdiverjet/1.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/muffdiverjet/3.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/muffdiverjet/2.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/muffdiverjet/5.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/muffdiverjet/4.jpg
First, let me say thanks.....
I bought this boat (Painted as is, no name though ;-) with a 455 that had 2 spun bearings and 2 cracks in the block, no interior or wiring for $150. Of course, after hearing horror stories, I opted for a good old BBC. This is my first boat, I did all the work myself and I just turned 20, so please bear with me. I could not get the drive line angle to even out, and I got it the best I could (I can fit a little more than a piece of cardboard between the hardin oil pan and the suction piece). I ran it all summer with a set of logs and the stock truck manifold and it was great. But I decided I wanted wet stacks and a new intake manifold, so I took the logs and the stock manifold off. My dad threw the logs and manifold in the trash, which was partially ok b/c I had already bought the rewarders, but no intake. Now I know this probably is not good, but I got the tunnel ram for free, which is rectangle port. The ports on the tunnel ram fully cover the stock oval ports, so I permatexed the sh!t out of it and put it on.
So here are the problems (Not all pertaining to the tunnel):
The boat will not stay lit with the tunnel. Pump the pedal a couple times and she will fire right up, rev up, then try to die unless you give it a lot of gas. No consistency, no matter how much gas you give it, it will rev up, try to die, give it gas, rev up, try to die. No idle. I am running a vacuum secondary 650cfm holley, which worked great on the stock manifold. I have been told that I need mechanical secondary carb on a tunnel. Or I know I may be a moron for trying to run a rectangle manifold on an oval set of heads, but IÂ’m in college and free is free. Anyone is the Santa Rosa Area that could help me or loan me a mechanical secondary carb for a day would be GREATLY appreciated. Not to mention, being 20, none of my friends have boats, so it would be cool to meet some people in the area with jets.
At idle, and only at idle, there is noise that reverberates through the hull when in the water. I donÂ’t think itÂ’s in the engine, so I disconnected the pump and the drive spins freely and the bearings feel good. The boat does have solid motor mounts. Could this be due to the joint angles?
What kind of boat is this? I found a sleekcraft that looked similar, and I have more pics if needed.
It has a G pump, and it has what looks like a hydraulic jet-o-vatorÂ…. What the hell is this? I rebuilt the hydraulic pump myself and installed the new lines, and it works well (mad roosters!).
Thanks Again,
Louis

[73SangerSuperJet]

Sorry about that, here are the pics
http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/muff1.JPG
http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/muff3.JPG
http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/muff2.JPG
http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/muff5.JPG
http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/muff4.JPG

[jet4fun]

well congrats on your first boat, i too believe in starting young, i am 22 now and bought my boat when i was 20 also. i live in the chico area and me and a bunch of my buddys are all jet boat weekend racers. if you want to make a trip up this way some time you are more than welcome.
i'm not a pro but i'll try to help you out on this. assuming you made no other changes to the motor besides the intake and headers i am gonna think your problem is either a timing issue or a vacuum leak. since it is easy to do, i would get a good timing light and check the timing(dont do it by ear). i really think you have a vacuum leak. i am a little confused on what you mean by "i permatexed the shit out of it". you should have no problem running a rectangle port intake on oval port heads(other than the fact that its very inefficient). i too did it on my boat for a while when i was saving up for the correct intake. all you do is use a set of rectangle port gaskets and mount it up like you know no different. you should have to do a little bit of adjustment to the carb with the tunnel ram so it can idle (have you done this yet?) having a vacuum secondary or a mechanical secondary isnt gonna have anything to do with idle. after you check timing and play with the carb and the problem isnt fixed, i would order a set of good gaskets like fel-pro and reinstall the intake, make sure to use black rtv silicone and if you arent real confident with your intake mounting skill find someone who is just to make sure its done good&clean. hopefully this should fix your problem.
as far as that driveline angle, i would maybe consider getting a shallower pan so you can lay that motor in more, also try to lift the motor up in the front, this should bring that angle down, just dont get carried away
oh yeah i almost forgot. i love your boat name :D and GOOD LUCK. btw why did you throw the logs away, you can get good money for those, believe it or not some people that have OT headers want to swithch to TT exhaust.
[ February 06, 2003, 11:38 PM: Message edited by: jet4fun ]

[396_WAYS_TO_SPIT]

All I have to say is that you got a nice boat for a smoking deal wink If you need help then you came to the right place. these guys on here are great guys and they will teach you all you want. I feel ya on the age bro, I just turned 25 on superbowl sunday and I am still learning. I just talked 2 of my buddies into buying jets and thats it.The others cant afford or dont want to spend money on a boat. You will make a lot of good friends on here. I think you need to change the angle of the driveline. My buddy goes through u-joints due to the wrong angle :mad: Also if you are running a 650 on that thing you are way under carburated. If your going to run a single carb you need to get a 850 double pumper.Jordy(on here) has one and his boat is fast wink . If you are thinking on switching to dual carbs(I would) I have 2 holley 750 vac secondaries that will work great with your set up I can sell you cheap. All they need is a kit in them. email me if your interested wink aslo, if you have any olds parts let me know and we can trade( i love trades) that way we both dont need to spend money except shipping wink and we can help each other wink I give you mad credit for doing your own work. I know how it is because I am rebuilding 2 jetboats at one time. just make sure to keep checking this post and I promise you that these guys will help you all the way wink They have helped me so much its unbelivable. Just stick in there because in no time you will have everything worked out by summer. But really you are starving your motor of fuel. Also I see that you are mising some gauges :confused: you really need them to see how your motor is running(oil,temp,volt,tach). Get a tach in there and find out what kind of rpm's you are spinning, that will help people answer your questions if you have others to ask.
Please email if you need any help. mrfierman78@hotmail.com
go to www.banderlog.com, (http://www.banderlog.com,) those guys are great people too! They can help you as well. Most of them own jets as well.
396

[jet4fun]

396 is right, an 850dp would be nice, and dual carbs would be even more fun. but i wouldnt go so far as to say that your carb is starving your motor of fuel, or air for that matter. if that motor is stock and has an extremely mild cam(and im guessing it does) then that carb is just fine. i know youre on a tight budget and if the carb ran fine on the old intake than there is no need to buy a new carb because i dont think changing carbs is gonna solve the problem.

[Tim_T]

As for your hull, it looks JUST like mine. I have a 72 sleekcraft rebel. What does the title say? Of course for the price you got it for I wouldnt even care what it said as long as it was clear. Anyways, it even sits the same in the water. I will have to scan my pics so you can see. Very good hull in rough water. Anyways just my .02 .

[jweeks123]

"At idle, and only at idle, there is noise that reverberates through the hull when in the water. I donÂ’t think itÂ’s in the engine, so I disconnected the pump and the drive spins freely and the bearings feel good. The boat does have solid motor mounts. Could this be due to the joint angles?"
Louis, this noise is normally due to the loose fit of the driveline over the splined pump shaft. if it goes away when you rev the engine a bit, you don't have a problem. if it doesn't go away when you rev the engine or gets worse, then you usualy have a main bearing problem in the jet. good luck with your project.
jw

[73SangerSuperJet]

Thanks for the responces! wow , that was quick!
I actually still have the logs (I talked to my dad, he threw away the manifold and kept the logs for me, as he is not fond of the wet stacks), so maybe some trade. As far as the permatex goes, I made a fat ass bead all around the manifold and let it set for 2 hours, then installed. No gasket (kreagan didn't have rectangle port gaskets). Also, when I got the new tunnel, I ditched the HEI dist. for the one you see. When I did this, the timing was all screwed up, so i set it to 8 degress BTC. No backfiring, sounds good. Maybe it is the timing? As for the noise in the drive line, it goes away as soon as it revs past idle. The u-joints were on all summer, and they were still in decent shape when I last took them off (of course I don't really know how to check them). Hey Tim_T, post some pics and specs! Thanx! I bought the boat with no title, and re-registered it and the trailer through CA DMV. Registered it as a 1973 Glenco, b/c I didn't know what kind. Then people said sanger (Hence my user ID), but as soon as I saw a 73 superjet, I knew it wasn't ;-( Anyone willing to help me get this thing running right can come to my pad and play some XBox HD on my 50" Toshiba, and I will BBQ some steak! Thanks again for the help everyone!

[73SangerSuperJet]

Oh yah, if anyone has any used interior, PLEASE let me know!
Thanks again,
Louis

[jetaddict]

Throw in a local hooker and I will jet on over!! Where in Cali are you from? Throw a vacuum gauge on your manifold and post the reading on here. That will tell several things. Nice ride.I have a 74 Sleek. Later eek!

[Wet Dream]

You might want to check the fuel pump. Even though you have what looks like a clear sight filter, and it looks like it has fuel in it, the carb might not be getting what it needs. Run a pressure test on that fuel line.

[jet4fun]

son of a burningm double post
[ February 07, 2003, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: jet4fun ]

[jet4fun]

73SangerSuperJet:
Thanks for the responces! wow , that was quick!
I actually still have the logs (I talked to my dad, he threw away the manifold and kept the logs for me, as he is not fond of the wet stacks), so maybe some trade. As far as the permatex goes, I made a fat ass bead all around the manifold and let it set for 2 hours, then installed. No gasket (kreagan didn't have rectangle port gaskets). Also, when I got the new tunnel, I ditched the HEI dist. for the one you see. When I did this, the timing was all screwed up, so i set it to 8 degress BTC. No backfiring, sounds good. Maybe it is the timing? As for the noise in the drive line, it goes away as soon as it revs past idle. The u-joints were on all summer, and they were still in decent shape when I last took them off (of course I don't really know how to check them). Hey Tim_T, post some pics and specs! Thanx! I bought the boat with no title, and re-registered it and the trailer through CA DMV. Registered it as a 1973 Glenco, b/c I didn't know what kind. Then people said sanger (Hence my user ID), but as soon as I saw a 73 superjet, I knew it wasn't ;-( Anyone willing to help me get this thing running right can come to my pad and play some XBox HD on my 50" Toshiba, and I will BBQ some steak! Thanks again for the help everyone! wow, i definetly smell a vacuum leak, eek! you definetly need to go get a set of rectangle port fel-pro intake gaskets, if you cant find it at your local parts house then call summit and order it 1-800-230-3030. when you install the gaskets dont use the front and rear seal pieces just put a fat bead of black rtv along the top of the block, make sure to install the intake as soon as youre done putting the silicone on, you should not let the stuff set for 2 hours, you want the stuff to be wet so that it can squish and seal and then dry. when you tighten the intake bolts go from the middle out, then after youve torqued the bolts down let the silicone set up.
i cant see the ignition in the pics, but personally the HEI is my favorite ignition (other than the MSD pro-billett). i would put the HEI back on.
find as many zerk fittings as you can on the jet and drivelines, and grease the shit out of them with a good marine grease. i'm not saying this will fix your problem but it should be done anyways if it hasnt been done in a while.

[TripleThreat]

I think HEI has fit problems when using a tunnel ram if I remember correctly. If the distributor you swapped in has points style ignition I would seriously consider a Pertronix ignition kit to convert it. They are fairly cheap ($80). If you were running an HEI IÂ’ll bet your plug gaps were fairly wide. If you then threw in a points style distributor, you are not going to have enough oomph to jump the gap reliably. I live in Redding, and I bought my first boat last year and have been doing a complete rebuild, but then again I am an old guyÂ…27. Good luck and email me if you are ever boating in Shasta Lake or Whiskeytown.

[Tim_T]

here are some pics of when i first got it home from Cali. Hope this works. im trying to get my scanner to work right so i can download the side profile shots. hopefully by tonight i will have them up.
Tim
http://free.***boat.net/cgi-bin/imageFolio.cgi?action=view&link=Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats&image=interior2.JPG&img=&tt= http://free.***boat.net/cgi-bin/imageFolio.cgi?action=view&link=Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats&image=rear_view.JPG&img=&tt=

[Tim_T]

Ok i got it this time.
http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/rear_view.JPG http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/interior2.JPG

[flat broke]

I'm going to go with Vacum leak and not so hot ignition setup. We'll start with the RTV job done on the manifold and go from there. Using a crap load of RTV is bad for a couple of reasons, but the first is that when you use a lot, you are going to have surface irregularities. The idea with sealants is to use just enough to fill small voids, not put so much on that you make new mountains of silicone that have to be compressed. The second issue is that eventually all that excess RTV that squished out into the valley will work loose and down onto your cam and ultimately your oil pan where it will will get pulled up against your pickup. Assuming you're running a stock melling or GM pickup, the screen doesn't go to the edge of the pickup body and as such, crap can get around it and into your oil pump. At the very least it will obscure your pickup surface possibly causing cavitation in your oil pump. Pull the manifold and get that mess cleaned up, re sealed with the appropriate gasket and then you have at least removed one area of concern so that when you try tuning the carb you're acutally tuning off of the true engine vacum and not a distorted signal.
Next would be ignition. Iginition is easily verified and set so it should be one of the first things you do when setting a tune on your motor. You say you have it set at 8 BTDC currently. Do you know how much advance that distributor pulls in, and how fast it pulls it in? Jet boat motors like their advance early and and quick. You should reach your maximum advance by 2k RPM. It looks like that might be a Mallory points distributor so I'd swap out the points for a pertronix as stated earlier and work on the advance curve. BBCs will run good with about 32 degrees total as a starting point assuming you dont have excessive static compression. This being said, you should have 24 degrees of advance in the distributor to get from your 8 degree at idle to a max of 32 for starters. I know this doesn't relate exactly to your current situation, but its plays a part in a second. Depending on the cam that is in your motor, you might want to up your initial timing to around 12 BTDC. With higher duration cams this will help with the vacum signal and give you a better baseline to start tuning your carb from. When you rev the motor right before it dies, how many RPM do you pull, just a thousand or so or what? In that interim where the boat idles for a second what RPM is it idling at? Being a jet boat, you can idle at 1000RPM or so which will bring in a little more timing and stronger vacum signal to once again improve your chances of getting a good tune. If you end up moving your initial timing to 12 degrees BTDC, make sure you don't dial in too much advance and put your total advance to a point which will cause detonation. Bring your plug gap back down to a points sized gap to get a stronger spark which will also help. After all this is done, you'll be in a better spot to start tuning the carb which is what will ultimately get you where you want to be.
Good luck
Chris

[73SangerSuperJet]

I had to switch the HEI b/c it didn't fit. the new is not a points style dist. As far as vacuum and fuel pressure are concerned, how do I check this (cheaply)? Hey Tim_T, what is the sixth gauge for on these boats?
Should I check the timing? Could it have anything to do with coil wiring? I used ballast resistor.... I don't know..... I just want put on my wet suit and go water skiing right now! I am in Santa Rosa in case anyone was wondering....
Thanks again
Louis

[Tim_T]

It has a gas gauge for both saddle tanks. All the gauges in the boat are what came with it in 1972. That really tripped me out. The guy i bought it from had them all recalibrated before i bought it. I see your motor sits a little farther back than mine. But i also have a Jacuzzi jet too. That could be why. Let me know if you have anymore questions.
Tim

[73SangerSuperJet]

I GOT IT TO RUN GREAT!!!!! Thanks for all the help everyone! First I put on gaskets, put it all back together, and fired it up. still same problem but more vacuum this time. I bought a vacuum gauge and at low RPMs it got 4-5lbs of vacuum. After looking around the carb, I noticed a gap at the back..... I had the carb on backwards, leaving an open hole..... after spinning it around and extending the fuel line, she came back to life, roaring her ass off. Oh it was great! Thanks again for all the help! I am gunna take her out to lake sonoma for a run tomorrow most likely.
http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/newmuff3.JPG
All Finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/newmuff1.JPG

[Cas]

Louis,
If you run into any more situations that you may need some help with, let me know, I'm in Sonoma and would be glad to help you out.
Not only that, if you're looking for some local fun, check out my website www.laidbackboaters.com (http://www.laidbackboaters.com)
We have quite a few things going on around here, the Delta, Berryessa, New Hogan, Shasta and even some things going on in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Oklahoma, Missouri and Virginia....if you like to drive anyway :)
It's a great chance to meet some real good people along with a couple of professional drag boat racers and pump builders. Anyway, we'd love to have you join us some time.

[Cas]

oh yea, if you go to the LBBA site, check out the "Pumpkins" on the Members Page. I think you'll like the Sanger they have.

[Tim_T]

http://free.***boat.net/ubb/Avatars/Reader_Rides/Jet_Boats/Tim_1.JPG
Hey man i think this pic will show you that your boat is in fact a sleekcraft rebel. I have more pics posted in readers rides if you want to take a look.
Tim

[jet4fun]

glad you got it figured out. i kinda thought it sounded like a vacuum leak all along. good luck on your boating quest. if youve got any more questions feel free to post.