5.7L or 7.4L?

[legacytons]

Hello all, I am a new member here today. I am the proud owner of 1984 SRV 197 Monaco with the 5.7L engine. It is a great boat, my buddy has an 2001 Crownline but is jealous of how my Sea Ray planes, rides & handles. I am looking to upgrade to a cruiser, probably a 24 to 26 foot Sundancer from the late 80's or early 90's. I like power but how much will gas use suffer with the larger engine? I will primarily be using it for day cruises & some overnights on the larger lakes here in south-central Illinois. I am planning on towing the new boat to our weekend outings (75 miles or less) with my Tahoe. The truck is rated for 8500 lbs but how feasible is towing a 5000 to 6000 lb boat around in the real world? I was also curious what year Sea Ray got away from the teak accents & finishes? Any & all help is appreciated.... I hope I can recipocate sometime. Jim

 

[berth control]

I found that i used less fuel with a cruiser - less running all over pulling water toys, ect. and more just putzin and chillin:thumbsup:

around 1988 or 89 is when they started getting rid of the teak, but the "same size" boats got smaller too, so to replace a 268 from 87 you need a 270 from 90

 

[Nehalennia]

I like my 260DA with a 5.7L. It burns around 8.5 GPH and we cruise about 4 hours per weekend trip to the San Juans and Canadian gulf islands. As we try to budget weekend trips we can count on moorage of $35 - $40 a night and $75-100 on fuel for a weekend. That makes it completely managable.
I tow it everywhere.

 

[legacytons]

Thank you guys for your inputs. I have been browsing around the site here & think its a great find!!! I'll let you know how the search goes & there might be a nice SRV 197 for sale soon!! Jim

 

[keokie]

The fuel consumption will be determined by the boat, no the motor. Planing hull don't coast. When I went from a 350 to a 502 EFI in my 260, fuel consumption at any given plnaing speed was actually a couple percent lower. the increased effeciency of the EFI and BIII versus A1 may have helped as well. However, I know others who have converted boats from small blocks to big blocks without seeing an increase in fuel consumption.

 

[berth control]

The way I understand it, it takes about the same amount of fuel to make 200 horsepower regardless of the engine. You can take a big four cyl. and run it at WOT and burn about the same fuel as a 502 running at half throttle making the same hp, so I think what Keokie says makes sense, a boat will consume the same amount of fuel (or pretty close) at 25mph no matter what engine configuration, it matters more WHAT boat is going 25mph than what ENGINES are in the boat going 25mph.

So....Scott, I agree the fuel consumption will be different among engines at the same RPM, but it will be similar at the same HP output. So the fuel consumption may be different at any given RPM among engines, but, like Keokie said, at any given speed it should be similar.

 

[keokie]

On another, boat I helped with two repowers and found the same regarding fuel consumption at speed. We started with a 350 and Alpha 1, then went to a 454 Alpha 1, then a 502 Bravo III. We took measurements of speed and fuel burn every 100 rpm. At displacement speeds, there was a lot of variance, but on plane, mpg was almost identical. As an Example, the 350 A1 would do 28 mph at 3900 rpm and 13 GPH, the 454 A1 would do 28 mph at 3200 rpm and 13 GPH, the 502 BIII did 30mph at 3000 rpm and 14 GPH.