97 (early) Sundancer 290DA 454ci L29 Bravo 3

scoflaw said:
You could really wake that motor up by ditching those peanut port heads. Looks like it's been pushing oil.
Are you going to bore it out with new pistons?
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Just honing it. Everything is in great shape. That's actually Indian Shellac not oil. I had installed the new intake before I decided to pull the motor. The heads are definitely weak, but I'm having a hard time justifying swapping them out. She's just a cruiser and I'd rather have the mileage and reliability than the extra couple of hp I think.
 
Don't know about the peanut ports but the rectangular heads I have on mine are well known for dropping seats. My guy did all new seats, valve guides and springs and 1 exhaust valve when I freshened up.
 
scoflaw said:
Don't know about the peanut ports but the rectangular heads I have on mine are well known for dropping seats. My guy did all new seats, valve guides and springs and 1 exhaust valve when I freshened up.
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I'm not going to worry about the seats or the springs. They appear to be good. Low compression and low rpm motor. I'll check what the spring rates are when I put them back together. I do all my own assembly. The only thing I don't do is the machine work.
 
While I'm waiting for the block to come back from the machine shop, I've been working on a few other projects. Today I finished with the potable water system and verified the vacuflush was operating correctly. I had pulled the tank and sanitized it. The fittings were leaking and the strainer at the water pump was cracked open. This allowed the bilge around the tank to stay flooded and get pretty nasty. Now it's all clean and looks good again. I also installed a new shower sump.
Finally, I ran 2ga wire from my Expy battery through a solenoid to the rear bumper where it terminates at a Anderson plug. I made an extension cable that goes from that to the trailer for the winch and trailer jack.

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Its all very impressive. One thing I would suggest you do with the compass if you plan to actually use it for holding a bearing and navigation is to have it recalibrated. You've taken it too far apart to have the factory settings maintained. There are companies that do this. If you are just going to use it as a pretty dash ornament and rely on a chartplotter, or you are going to stick to lake boating it's not really an issue. But if you are going into the ocean and are planning on this as a back up this is critical.
 
Henry Boyd said:
Its all very impressive. One thing I would suggest you do with the compass if you plan to actually use it for holding a bearing and navigation is to have it recalibrated. You've taken it too far apart to have the factory settings maintained. There are companies that do this. If you are just going to use it as a pretty dash ornament and rely on a chartplotter, or you are going to stick to lake boating it's not really an issue. But if you are going into the ocean and are planning on this as a back up this is critical.
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Thank you. I appreciate the thought and you're right that it needs to be recalibrated. With all the digital compasses or one of my analog compasses calibrating them yourself is pretty easy.
I removed, degreased and reinstalled my transom assembly with a little Life Calk today. I also installed my Raymarine hv100 transducer.
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Rough cut my temp dash. Eventually I'm going to build a custom fiberglass setup to bring the gauges a little closer and incorporate my chart plotter in the middle.


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Much better. Still needs some finishing work, but I like it overall. The gauges are so much easier to see and read. Not bad for a $20 piece of HDPE plastic and some gauges I had in the garage. I did have to buy the trim gauge also.

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HawkX66 said:
Just honing it. Everything is in great shape. That's actually Indian Shellac not oil. I had installed the new intake before I decided to pull the motor. The heads are definitely weak, but I'm having a hard time justifying swapping them out. She's just a cruiser and I'd rather have the mileage and reliability than the extra couple of hp I think.
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Those peanut port heads are torque monsters have them in my GEN 6 7.4 torque peaks at around 2800 to 3300 RPM I would stick with those any day of the week on a cruiser ,the rectangle port curves don’t begin until around 3800-4000 RPM I don’t know too many Cruisers running their boats in the higher RPM range if it was a go fast boat everything I just said is contradictory.
 
joeyleggz said:
Those peanut port heads are torque monsters have them in my GEN 6 7.4 torque peaks at around 2800 to 3300 RPM I would stick with those any day of the week on a cruiser ,the rectangle port curves don’t begin until around 3800-4000 RPM I don’t know too many Cruisers running their boats in the higher RPM range if it was a go fast boat everything I just said is contradictory.
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I decided to stick with them. My machinist said the same thing as you. They'll be perfect for what I need. Thanks.
 
Motor machine work is done. Now to order gaskets, seals and bearings and get it back together. Before I assemble the heads I'm going to machine them for posiloc valve seals.
I recut my dash with a little more detail also.

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Robert A said:
So....what are you going to do for the dashpad? :)
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Grrrr… lol. I think I'm going to fab something out of wood and fiberglass over it for now. That's the only thing I can think of right now that will match.
 
Robert A said:
hmmm... don't throw away your mold/jig. :)
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I'm going to go off what's left of my original dash I think for starters. The internal wood is completely rotted and the vinyl is all cracked. It will help for the initial basic shape at least.
 

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I had a piece molded out of starboard, then padded and vinyl wrapped. The shape is good, but the vinyl is too loose and puffy. I would prefer something more solid.
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Robert A said:
I had a piece molded out of starboard, then padded and vinyl wrapped. The shape is good, but the vinyl is too loose and puffy. I would prefer something more solid.
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I don't want mine wrapped with vinyl. I just want it solid. It'll be a good excuse to use my new toy again. I built this router table that I've been wanting to build out of an old a/v cart. I've been looking at it and using it for years in my garage and finally bought a router lift for it. It's what I used to make the gauge dash.

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