Can you put a newer Optimax Sportjet motor in a 1998 Tango Sugar Sand?

[Jerry W]

New Member - hopefully I'm in the right place to ask this question. Can you put a newer Optimax Sportjet motor in a 1998 Tango Sugar Sand? I recently acquired a 1998 Tango Sugar Sand with a SJ175xr2. About 10 years ago the motor went bad (piston broke up) and the owner parked it in a barn and there it sat until I came along. In tearing the motor apart, I have found that the core looks like it could be rebuilt, but I am noticing that much of everything else on the motor looks corroded/bad. And I am thinking I might be better off to get a new, or a newer used, but complete, Sportjet Optimax motor. Can a newer Optimax Sportjet motor be mounted on a 1998 Sportjet Pump? Or would I need to find a newer motor and pump? Would a newer Sportjet Pump even fit in my 1998 Sugar Sand? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Blkrvrbart]

If you’re up to the hull modifications and getting it approved by the USCG, anything is possible. Just takes money and time. If you’re going that far, drop in a Seadoo 4tec 210 turbo and jet pump, after cutting the hull and remanufacturing the pump mount, but there again that goes back to getting it recertified, all modified, fabricating all sorts of adapters. You’d have to really love the boat to put that much work in either way. I’d realistically stick with a reman 175 from OBD, do the swap myself, go through everything while it’s out, delete the oil pump system. If all your ignition components are toast (corroded) on top of a reman motor you’ll probably have close to $6k in it doing the work yourself. That would be a boat I would really have to have a personal attachment to. But that’s just my opinion. I rebuilt an Alpha I outdrive on my old Imp Aztec because of the memories in that boat. If I had it to do again I would have sent it down the road, the guy that bought it from me four years later burned it up because he was too lazy to rebuild the water pump. What do you do?