Questions from a potential 2007 340DA owner.

[melida]

Hi to all current and past 2003,5-2008 340DA owners..

I’m planning to buy a diesel 340DA (which is the smallest V-drive diesel) if I can sell my 2005 280DA, and narrowed my search to a loaded 2007 340 which fits to my boating style and pocket, but have some questions and concerns about design/accommodation, hope you can answer and convince me.

First of all being a 2005 280DA owner wife and 8 year old daughter doesn’t like the cockpit seating plan of the 340. The helm seats are fixed and they have bucket style side supports where same era 320DA’s helm seats are flat and you can lie your feet while anchored, so useless space for the 340.

How many people comfortably seat to the J shaped aft cockpit seating while cruising and anchored ?

Is it possible to convert the port side companion seat to a swivel seat like the 2008+ newer 340DAs?

The aft locker raises with the engine hatch so it is not fixed and the gap between the starboard aft corner of locker and hull seems to allow rain and hose water into the engine room or am I wrong?

I saw that battery charger/converter is reached from the mid cabin port locker to view the charge condition but how easy to replace it when it dies?

The owners/parts manuals shows that there is void space in front of the port batteries, is it really empty or the battery charger lays there?

The generator in the boat (is placed at the starboard aft corner) that I want to buy has a sound box and really quitens the genny and it was difficult to hear the starting noise. But when the raw water pump impeller will be changed the starboard hatch lift motor must be uninstalled according to owner due to the sound box? Is it true? if so how easy to do it and how to secure the entire cockpit with port hatch lift motor?

There is a synchronizer gauge at the helm but it isn’t electronic, so how reliable is it or is it worth add electronic?

The fresh water tank is under the mid cabin, so how easy to reach/take out in case of leak/crack?

This particular boat have lots of options and only missing is autopilot to me, so I’ll add it when the time comes. Where are the fluxgate compass and core pack placed when the boat ordered new from Searay?

I saw in the manuals that there is a huge locker under the salon sofa,but no lids like in the 320DA and there is a cover/cap in my future boat when I pulled the sofa for converting to bed and the owner said there isn’t a locker under the sofa. Isn’t it strange?

Up to now these are my and my families concerns about the 340, and I don’t want them to be unhappy if I buy the 340.

I know you’ll tell that go buy 2004ish 360DA or go a few years older and buy a 2001ish 380DA but they don’t fit to my boating style/anchorages etc and huge increase in the annual operating costs which I barely convinced the admiral for the 340.

Greatly appreciated for your comments and answers in advance.

 

[melida]

Answers in blue

Great thanks Scott, I was thinking that the first reply would come from you.

 

[Pilot]

I'd add that finding a 340 with Diesel engines is a true find. My 350DA burns 1 gallon of gas per .8 miles, so I would love to have diesel and the savings and piece of mind associated with that.

 

[mquiet]

Not really a savings going from the gas to the Diesel engines for this boat unless you are going to put a lot of hours on her. Diesel will get 0.8mpg. Same as gas. He advantage for fuel is if you travel at lower (1000rpm) range. I owned a 340 with 7.4's and ran great. I now have twin diesels and no better fuel.


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[melida]

I'd add that finding a 340 with Diesel engines is a true find. My 350DA burns 1 gallon of gas per .8 miles, so I would love to have diesel and the savings and piece of mind associated with that.

In my country diesel is the way to go and people buy even 240DA with diesel engine and there are lots of diesel Searays in various sizes . My previous boat was a 27ft and current 280DA are also diesel powered. Gas prices are higher than diesel and even the oil prices decreased almost 50% but gas/diesel prices not decreased respectively and our government increases the prices to finance other expenditures.:smt021:smt013

The 2007 340DA powered with twin Yanmar 315hp V drives burns 64-70 liters per hour/two engine running at 22knots/3000rpm which makes 25mph/16,9-18,5gph which gives a 1,48-1,35MPG if I'm not converting wrong.

I've done 520 hours up to day with my 280DA since my 6+ years of ownership and I twice justified the gas-diesel boat price difference.

 

[melida]

Not really a savings going from the gas to the Diesel engines for this boat unless you are going to put a lot of hours on her. Diesel will get 0.8mpg. Same as gas. He advantage for fuel is if you travel at lower (1000rpm) range. I owned a 340 with 7.4's and ran great. I now have twin diesels and no better fuel.


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I always prefer to cruise at planning speed as running at low rpm is not a good thing for a diesel engine if you do it frequently.
As I calculated 1,35 to 1,48 MPG over 0,8MPG make a huge saving for me doing average 90 hours yearly and paying 16% less (per liter price) than gas, but this may not aply to your country and seem illogical to buy a diesel boat in this size.
Also your 480DB which is my dream boat may seems economical with CAT engines than same size other brand boats but it is a fact that it burns more than gas 340DA even you have diesels. :smt101

 

[melida]

Any other opinions/suggestions ?
If everthing goes well I may take the possession of the 340 and want to finish all my due diligence prior that date.

 

[melida]

Re: Questions from a 2007 340DA owner.

Well, I got the possession of the 340DA and took her home and now I'm an officially two boat owner as of yesterday.


So the first project gonna be the autopilot installation.


Scott can you describe and post pics of your installation of the hydraulic hoses from steering ram/ER to helm, wiring the core pack from salon couch base through helm, also the electrical/power connection of the control unit which I think to hook it to the ACC2 button or what empty acc button is available in the front EIM module, where I also have a tridata which is powered by ACC1 button.

I already have to cut the plywood under the salon sofa for the core pack and want to use that huge space as a storage compartment, so what tool to use for cutting carefully and without damaging the plywood than using the cut parts as lids.

Thanks in advance.

 

[melida]

The install is pretty straight forward. Here is where I mounted the control head...

Steering feedback (may not be needed with newer auto pilots)

Hydraulic pump mount, fabricated...


Looks like I don't have any other photos. Basically, the computer is mounted behind the couch, and you have to remove the seat portion of the couch and mechanisms to gain access. I mounted the flux gate along the front side of the couch, in the space behind the mold and face of the couch.

When you get the couch apart, you will see there is no storage available under it. you could perhaps construct some bins to sit behind the back of the couch, but that is all. In my opinion, it is not worth messing with, as there is plenty of storage on the boat as it is.

There is a power bus under the helm for you to power the autopilot, you just need to run the electrical to it. Rather than patching into the ACC2, I ran a separate toggle switch and mounted it on the vertical surface below the throttles, along with a power switch for the Raystar GPS antenna. (If you don't have a power switch, consider adding one, as it will lock up from time to time, and the only way to reset it is to pull the fuse. Adding a power switch gets rid of the issue)

You will need to add a hydraulic return line to the manual pump at the helm, and I used lines from Sea Star that were already cut to length with fittings installed for all the hydraulic lines. Rather than splicing into the hydraulic lines at the steering rams, you can hook into the the bleed valves on the rams themselves. (Makes for a clean installation, with no chance of leaks.)

If I get to the boat today, I'll try to take some photos, I think the ones above are when I installed it on my previous 320. When I sold the 320, I took it off and installed it in the 340.

Scott,
Great thanks again fort the pics and detailed explanation.

So what’s under the couch? If I understand correctly or misunderstood that is not a void space, is there a kind of foam type material for structural integrity?

I’ll dig in further at the weekend for passing the cables and hoses as the boat is new to me and it’s a completely different animal than the 280DA even the basic Searay stuff are same but bigger and tighter locations, damn hernia :smt021.

I’d like to see your 340’s photos of autopilot configuration if its possible.

Once again thanks in advance and thanks a lot, your guidance will be too much helpful for my installation.

 

[melida]

I assume the big block under the couch is foam, it's a shame that they didn't leave it hollow. I'll be headed up to the boat today, so I'll try to get some photos for you.

Running the wires is not too horrible, the worst part is trying to find them once you push them into the bilge. That requires reaching up over the fuel tank on the starboard side and feeling around. If you are like Gumby, or double jointed, it's no problem...for the rest of us...problem.

You can remove the plastic cup holder/speaker assembly next to the helm which will expose the main wire channels. You'll notice to giant globs of silicone fore and aft. You will probably be able to punch through the forward glob, which allows you to run the wiring to the electrical panel, and then to the sofa. The aft, well, you may be able to punch through it, but eventually I found it easier to just drill a new hole.

Use caution, because the fuel lines are in that general area as well. To practice your inner Gumby, go into the bilge with a camera and reach up into the void and take a picture...like this



Doing the photo thing will help you determine where in relation to the glob of silicone to drill a new hole with a hole saw. After you are done, you can imitate Sea Ray with a giant glob of your own silicone.

Wowwww Scott great thank again for the tips and advices, thats truely appreciated.

Tomorrow gonna contort my 1.85m 88kg body between starboard engine and batteries to see whats around as you mentioned then to the emergency/hospital as my hernia will resurrect right after :smt021.

Will post pics of ER which may differ from your's as I have diesels and European version 375.

King regards

 

[HUMPH]

Congrats on the 340 Melida! Post some performance numbers when you have had a chance to gather the. Umbrrs.

 

[melida]

Congrats on the 340 Melida! Post some performance numbers when you have had a chance to gather the. Umbrrs.

Thanks Ken.


It's powered with twin Yanmar 6LPA-STP 315Hp ZF V-drives and cruises @ 3000rpm 22.5 knots and tops out @ 3800 30ish knots.

When I sea trialed the boat on may 9, splashed right after antifouling job done there was 1 meter wave and strong SW wind against us. She planed at 2800 and ran comfortably at 3000rpm doing 20 knots and topped out 29,6 knots at 3800rpm.

When I got the bill of sale on may 20, took her home from 8-9 miles away at the Bosphorus strait she did 22,5 knots at 3000rpm with a 11 day old antifouling as should do and did 30,5 knots at 3800 rpm. But after a few miles with the help of tide/current I was running 25-26 knots at 3000rpm however I was upwind and saw 33 knots at wot.

A friend with a identical boat runs at 3100rpm 23 knots and sees 29 knots at wot whos boat is a bit heavier than mine which has water maker, bose sound system etc runs always extended biminis on.

At sea trial there was ½ fuel and 0 water+ water heater 0 black water and PO didn’t used her until I got it. I took her to my summer island and during the all runs sea trial and my run the needle didn’t even moved a mm which is around 1,5 hours, so I’m thinking that if the two tanks’ level senders stuck simultaneously.:huh:

The Yanmar manual indicates that 1 engine burns 32 liters per hour at 3000rpm so 64 two engine. I’m estimating to average 70 LPH with different sea and bottom conditions and using generator, also my friend with the same boat as I mentioned runs at 3100 rpm and burns 70-75 LPH.

Will see at the refueling time comes.

 

[melida]

Okay, here is the photos of the hydraulic connections and steering feedback. I was able to squirm the camera behind the sofa to snap a photo of the computer. It is mounted on a vertical surface, oriented perpendicular to the centerline of the boat.

The flux gate is further to the right, mounted on the vertical surface perpendicular to the centerline as well, out of sight of the photo. I constructed a plywood bulkhead for it to mount to, after removing the sofa bed.

View attachment 40508View attachment 40509View attachment 40510View attachment 40511

Scott great thanks once again for the photos and explanation.

I’m gonna call the RM guy tonight to share the info and photos you gave and gather the needed tools and custom made brackets etc.

And ofcourse I’ll be onboard at the weekend to cut the plywood under the sofa base and clean the foam for the computer.:smt021

Here below is my pics seen from outboard side of starboard engine which seems similar to yours.

 

[melida]

Oh and btw here she is.



The 280DA at the left wich is currently for sale.


and please accept my regards from the engine room.

 

[melida]

Late update as the boat was remote to me recently.

Done the auopilot installation with the great help of Scott/sfergson727.

Coulnd’t cut the salon sofa seat base as it is a stronger material like grp than plywood, so put the ACU-200 core pack over the Wall/plywood behind the cabin electrial panel/drawer under the galvanic isolators.



Put the evolution EV1 sensor core first behind the helm/captain’s cup holder/spaekar but it did caused to daviation of 10-15 degrees because of the metal/magnet effect of speaker, so uninstalled and put it under the ACU200 and bolted it to a wood then glued to the hull via sikaflex 291, and since then there is no deviaton and keeping the same heading of gps/C80.



Put the P70R colour A/P head to the left of the radio/stereo remote. Firstly wanted to put it side by side to the tridata but cutting the board would leave a huge gap which would introduce rain/moisture down to the electrical connections, so thought to place it to where the sync gauge is and cut a new hole between starboard rpm and multi gauge for sync but didn’t felt happy with that scenery. So decided to put it to the left of the radio/stereo remote.



Put the autopilot pump as where you installed but wihtout L bracket directly bolted to vertical support of the swim platform. Used the steering system’s bleeding ports for the pump hose connections and made and connected via custom fittings to convert the imperail size of the bleeding fitting to the metric hose. Passing through the hydraulic return hose between bilge over the starboard fuel tank and helm cup holder area was a nightmare and remembered my hernia instantly while I was contorting over the 3 batteries. Also bleeding the hydraulic hose was a pita form my arms.



Put the steering angle sensor/feedback as where you put but under the bar. Bend an aluminum sheet to suit the sensor as lying over its base and connected it’s bolt to the port side steering arm via cutting a hole and fixing with a bolt.



The electrical connections between pump head unit and core pack, sensor pack passed around the gap behind the helm cup holder without any cut holes, and hooked the power to the system to ACC1 button and works with tridata.

As you’d see in my pics that the steering bar is rusted where your’s is painted to black. So I want to paint mine to and what kind of paint do you recommend for it.

Up to now system works perfectly.

Once again great thanks to Scott/sfergson727 as he is the master of 340’s.