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Need help diagnosing really weak rebuilt 350

3K views 24 replies 11 participants last post by  BogiesAnnex1 
#1 ·
Long story short, I bought a long block for my 20 ft boat. Put it in and it was very weak. It was supposed to be around 275 hp, but obviously wasn't.
I did a compression test with it still in the boat, and got very poor compression numbers. I then pulled it out and checked to see if the cam timing was on, at the engine builders recommendation. It was. I then did a leakdown test and these are the results I would like help interpreting.

cyl 1 - 11%, just a tiny bit past the exhaust valve, the rest past the rings
cyl 2 - 15%, a little past the exhaust valve, the rest past the rings
cyl 3 - 25%, a lot past the exhaust valve, the rest past the rings
cyl 4 - 18%, a little past the exhaust valve, the rest past the rings
cyl 5 - 23%, a lot past the exhaust valve, the rest past the rings
cyl 6 - 26%, a lot past the exhaust valve, the rest past the rings
cyl 7 - 15%, a little past the exhaust valve, the rest past the rings
cyl 8 - 11 %, a little past the exhaust valve, the rest past the rings

I could not find any leakage past intake valves on any cylinder, but every single exhaust valve was leaking, some pretty bad.
My main questions is this:
Is ANY leakage permissible past the exhaust valves?


Thanks
 
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#4 ·
He's right, boat take more power. Boat motors are a different breed. They are just cammed different. lThey usualy built a lilttle dilfferent. rebuild it and study up on the right build. You could get by, by just rebuilding the heads, valve job, but that may not be enough. If your boat is realy good, i'd do a complete rebuild.
 
#9 ·
Sure, you'll get SOME leakage from all components. Take into consideration though, that under actual operation, the valves and rings have very little TIME to leak, unlike a leakdown test, where the components have plenty of TIME to leak down and things look worse than they actually are.

I know it's very frustrating to lay down your hard-earned money to someone and then find that what you bought does not lend itself to the work at hand.

As a young man, I went through this a couple of times until I finally realized that there are few really honest people on this rock and I never again bought anything "running". I read all I could and talked to people who knew what they were doing until I had the skills to choose the proper parts and machine shop operations to arrive at a pre-determined goal. I've been doin' this stuff since the 50's and I still learn something new every day.

I know I'm not helping you much, but if I can get to a few younguns who are reading this thread and educate them about how to do this stuff without gettin' "had", then it will be worth it.
 
#6 ·
If the engine is new,after 20 hours it should either improve or deteriorate quickly. I hope it was broken in properly?after 20 hours should be good to go and then some. 275 horses is not really a very high out put.Other than power,what complaints do you have?
I should have reread your first post,,,,what do you expect your boat to do with 170 ish horse power.A lot of boat v-8s run at 70% and its 20 feet long.
re leak down,it would be nicer if all the values were equal.
 
#10 ·
I followed the rebuilders recommendation and put a zinc additive in the oil for initial startup. I also ran the rpm to 2000 immediately on startup. Ran it like that for 5 or so minutes, then let it come down to idle and varied the rpm for the next 5 minues. Then to the lake, where I drove it at varying speeds for about an hour. For the next 5 or so hours I never pushed it hard, and tried to vary speeds.

It was supposed to be a stock replacement, and yes 275hp isn't very impresive, but I was/am on a budget. No other complaints really, it's just weak. It can only push the boat to 30 mph at 5200 rpm. The boat is empty, and light. I am hoping for 40 mph plus, and thought that a good 275 hp engine would do it.
 
#8 ·
That's what I figured. Based on that I would say that the valves were very poorly rebuilt, and that the rings could be fine. Is that a decent assumption?

Yes I did a compression test prior to the leakdown. I was getting 115 psi on my best cylinders, and 89 on my worst. that's what clued me into a problem in the first place.
 
#11 · (Edited)
you stated you adjusted the valves! and only the exhausts are leaking, try backing off the exhaust valves a little. to give them a little more clearance and they might seat better! The intake valves run cooler and the exhaust valve stems expand a little with the combustion temps and might be rising just a hair off the seats! Do the exhaust valves have rotators installed ? Is it a solid cam or hyd.? What did you set the valve clearances at? Is this a Chevy, Volvo, Ford, ETC? Reverse rotation? What r.p.m. did your old engine turn at 30?


Jester
 
#14 ·
'79 chevy 350, regular Rotation, The old engine didn't run when I got the boat. I re-adjusted the valves according to a write up by a very knowledgeable guy on another forurm, (honestly can't remember the exact details of how he had me do it. Was months ago) and it made no difference from where the rebuilder had adjusted them.
I don't know if the exhaust valves have rotators. Sorry for not having much info.

The engine is on the stand at this point, and honestly I'm just looking to see which parts of it aren't completly crap. I am ready to put together an engine myself that doesn't suck. What I'm looking for is ways to quickly diagnose if the bottom end is any good. I'm pretty much planning on new heads, intake, carb, etc. If I need to have the bottom end gone thru, I have a great machine shop that can do it. I would be happy for suggestions of what heads intake, etc for a good 300 hp budget build.
 
#18 ·
Way too much loss and too much difference between cylinders. But first how was this tested?

The engine should be brought up to operating temperature before testing. This closes the ring gaps to operating clearance. If you don't do this then a thick engine oil should be introduced before testing a 30, 40 or 50 weight oil so it can seal up the rings without being blown out by the test pressure. Keep in mind that an operating engine is also using cylinder pressure to push the rings outward against the cylinder walls which is what actually makes the seal. Cranking or static testing cannot duplicate this exactly, so the pressure loses appear higher in these tests than they really are. If these things aren't done the leakage rate will look excessive. Yours is high on some cylinders and certainly the differential between cylinders is way out of bed. I look for no more than a 5 percent differential between cylinders. The test should be done with each cylinder at TDC and the crankshaft locked so the pressure cannot rotate the crankshaft, this is both from a safety and unified test process standpoint.

However, I start getting concerned when the loss exceeds 10 percent when following the process I just outlined and the differential between the high and low cylinders exceeds 5 percent.

I'm be less than pleased with leakage past the exhaust valves that you're seeing. This can indicate poor seat conformability between the valve and seat or it shows weak springs. Intakes are more flexible than exhausts simply due to increased size they conform to the seat better. Exhausts need better attention paid to them when doing the seats and may need a bit stouter spring than the intake.

Boat motors work a lot harder than road vehicle motors so extra cautions are in order when it comes to cooling and lubrication as well as timing and mixture. It is mighty easy to toast the exhaust valves and certainly piston and bore wear are greater issues but that said at 20 hours unless the timing and or mixtures are way off you shouldn't see valve damage. Since you are; my list of suspicious charters would immediately turn toward ignition timing against RPM and mixture ratio's. If these things get out of line; the motor becomes toast pretty quickly. Detonation is much harder to hear from a boat motor because of all the other noise, if you're running into this problem it can do a lot of damage before your aware that things are amiss. Sparkplug color is not always a good indicator on boats as they tend to run quite cold when fired up which may carbon the plugs making them appear that the mixture is richer or the timing less advanced than it actually is. Boat motors are lot trickier to diagnose than car/truck motors in these instances.

Bogie
 
#19 ·
Your compression numbers are low for a rebuilt engine. Rough calculation would show you at about 7.8 to 1. Not the recipe for a 300+ hp engine. I would take a hard look at the cam timing before you go crazy. The timing chain being off a tooth can affect compression. I would expect to see at least 135 compression in each cylinder. This is assuming the combo is setup to produce around 9:1 compression ratio.
If the exhaust valves are a little tight or the valve job was sub par this could also be part of the problem.
Dont assume you only have 1 issue.
 
#20 ·
I checked the cam timing, and it's indeed on. I'm not assuming i have only one issue, which is why I'm going to tear it all down and work with my local machine shop to get it back to where it should be. Thanks for all the help guys. I learned a valuable lesson. Don't buy a cheap long block off the internet....
 
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