Have you considered installing a pair of MR-1s?
No. The only thing I thought of as far as that goes is the 1.8’s but I do not think the engine bay is big enough, and the MR-1’s are even bigger, even if it was I wouldn’t consider that. The MR-1 engines are going away as are the 1.8’s with the introduction of the 1.9 engines.
As it is, this project is testing my comfort zone limits, but my friend who has done a lot of this sort of thing is what is keeping me interested. While my boats‘ power, at altitude in the summertime, 27% loss =‘s 81 hp per engine instead of 111 at sea level is wanting I don’t want to do something shortens the life span of the engines or makes them unreliable, just bringing the power up closer to stock sea level power at altitude isn’t going to stress the system greater than the oem configuration. Installing the BC cams is about a $1500 per engine project without a tune, and is not something wildly out of the ordinary for this engine as the Viper engine uses even more aggressive cams, but it will need more fuel to realize full potential of the cams, 15% increase with only the cams and 25% with more fuel at sea level. If I can get an auto tuner for this project that would be outstanding, otherwise it’s the RIVA solution as far as adding fuel.
It’s tempting to just go up to the 222 FSH and it’s 400 hp with the 1.9 engines, but that boat looks to be a lot harder to get the top off of so I can get it in my heated shop, could it stay outside in the winter? Sure it could, but it’s pretty nice being able to work on the boat in a heated shop in winter. And there’s the additional expense, if I’m going to upgrade then I’d probably sell my boat as is sans the LFP batteries and fit the new boat with a next gen Humminbird Apex MFD and the brushless MinnKota trolling motor which is $5K alone.
The guy I spoke to in FLA also said to just remove the ribbon and vent the crankcase outside and that would give 10 hp. That sounds like easy power right? But I want to see a dyno chart with that info before I do all that work. Removing hot, oxygen depleted gas from the induction system would definitely help increase the pounds of air reaching the combustion chamber, as well as the MAP sensor seeing denser air and adding more fuel accordingly. That sounds like something I could test relatively easy this coming summer. This guy also said to disconnect the battery to make the ECU recalibrate after doing those mods, sensible but not necessary, in my experience with open loop power sports engines all that is necessary is to start the engine and let it idle for 10 mins and they’ll recalibrate themselves. Ever had your engine not start well cold ? That’s because the system was still at the same setting from the last time you ran it, let it idle for a while and it will start and run great once the system recalibrates itself. If I were to do the ribbon delete I’d source a couple of used intake manifolds to do it to as it “appears” the ribbon is molded into the manifold and it would require destroying the ribbon to get it out, if anyone knows differently please shout out. When I talked to RIVA a couple years back I asked about deleting the ribbon, after reading about it here, and that person I talked to said that would not yield worthwhile gains in my engines. I’m old and experienced enough to have tried some of those simple tricks and actually had those tricks become a negative, like using K&N air filters on a car for instance, I can link you a test on them if you want see it. Using K&N air filters on a boat, especially our boats did yield a small gain in performance, in my case 150-200 rpm, essentially the same as running with no air filter.
@buckbuck I‘ll ask that guy about the head design when I call him to ask about buying intake manifolds for my engines.
