Best Of

Yes, I'm wondering if my last set was counterfeit (they did have the protectors) and that's why my port engine ate two plugs....

I ordered 8 new intake bolts. I cut the heads off of 4 of the old ones. I’m going to use these as guides for when the intake goes on. The intake is extremely heavy and you really only have one shot to line everything up and not ruin the sealant and gaskets. You don’t want to have to slide the intake around to get it aligned. This will line it up perfectly on the first shot. I painted the distributor hold down and bolt also.

Thank you @captkevin !
The reason for cleaning the threads is to prevent any debris from dragging on the bolt and giving a false torque reading.
I torqued the bolts in three stages and in a certain order. There’s another method to use a torque angle but I felt this method was fine. I even bought the tool to torque to a degree but heard stories of people breaking bolts. But I also read that method is for torque to yield bolts. The new head bolts I bought are not TTY bolts.

I much prefer someone like ARP head studs where you don't need that final, say torque to 80 ft-lbs and then an extra 80 degree turn.   

The boat has plenty of working room but many modern V8 engines don't have a ton of space under the hood to make that a simple process.  

I also appreciate reusable bolts.   Whenever possible I always switch over to arp studs or reusable hardware. 

@YYZRC just the ones out of spec. Cleaned, decked and the valves reinstalled. I’m assuming that the seats were inspected also and would’ve been replaced if needed.

What blows me away is how heavy all these parts are. If they could all be aluminum, including the blocks it would be a 60+ mph boat!

It was a rock shoal near Jefferson Beach.  The locals all know it's there.  I would have been fine at 8 knots, but I throttled up at exactly the wrong time.  "That's all I have to say about that."

A good friend and fantastic Maritimo captain sent this pic to make me feel better, and it did.  See if you can spot any damage other than the propeller.  The damage was rumored to be nearly $200k.