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525 Whipple Dilemma (Problems)

DeckBoat

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I have a Conquest Deck Boat with a Whipple Supercharged 525 MerCruiser. At the last service, my mechanic told me that #7 Cylinder is only at 80PSI and all others are Normal at around 130 if I recall.

I am facing thousands in repairs to pull the engine and replace all internals. Here's where it gets interesting:

My good friend has a bone stock under 70 hour 525 and he wants my parts. He is offering to trade me his stock and good running engine for my Whipple 525. He would have it rebuilt and install it in his boat.

Is this a good way to go? I would be giving up having a supercharger and whatever value that adds. As for me, I can live without it. I've already had to replace the outdrive once.

Does this sound like a good deal? I would still have to pay for the swap of the engines. And that's gonna run appx ~3k maybe less

Just looking for opinions. What would you do? What does a full rebuild on a 525 usually run? If the engine comes apart I really want to replace everything.

I'm leaning towards taking the deal...

Thanks!
 

AzGeo

Fair winds and following seas George.. Rest Easy..
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Find out exactly why #7 is low before you do anything . With no history or information on what you have, it's hard to make any kind of call on how to best cure the problem . What if it just needs a set of new valve springs, or even a 'valve job with new valve springs' ? Let's not jump into 'open heart surgery', and later find out it was just 'the flu' .
 

oldschool

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Find out exactly why #7 is low before you do anything . With no history or information on what you have, it's hard to make any kind of call on how to best cure the problem . What if it just needs a set of new valve springs, or even a 'valve job with new valve springs' ? Let's not jump into 'open heart surgery', and later find out it was just 'the flu' .

LOL. I love the analogy. AZGeo is dead nuts on, find out what's really wrong first.
 

Racing97

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Have your mechanic do a leak down test and tell you where the loss is, inlet track more than likely a valve related issue or leakage out of the breather system for the crank case is likely more piston, rings, etc. If you can get away with just pulling the heads you won't be to set back

regards
 

Cole Trickle

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Put that 3k towards getting the motor looked at and rebuilt. For all you know it's nothing crazy and you just gave away a 5k blower
 

RiverDave

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If it was me I'd just fix it and tell your buddy to keep his 525
 

Don Johnson

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I am no expert on this and diagnosing the cause should be left to the experts, lots could have caused this, too much boost, bad fuel, bad program etc etc. If the Whipple was done by an expert and used Whipple program at recommended boost then I am going to speculate that you have a bad injector and it most likely is running lean and heated up that piston and rings. If lean enough could eventually cause catastrophic damage. If it was low fuel pressure guardian should have protected motor.

Back to your question, since your buddies engine is very low hour and if you don't care about giving up the HP of the blower seems to me a good deal. IMHO if you are looking at resale the boat is worth more with a stock 525 vs modified/Whipple.
 

Trim it up

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EXACTLY!!! Take that stock 525........boats with stock merc power sell faster and for more $$$.....IMO.

I'm with you guys. I remember when I bought my first boat ( 25 Daytona), I was looking for a stock Merc motor. I didn't want something too crazy.
 
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