screamineagle
New member
I have a pair of 502's bored and stroked to 540's with low compression and a conservative cam, running 850 Holleys with a crossover replacing the water pump. The crossover was on the boat when I got it as a 502. There were thermostats with 4 or 5 pretty good sized holes drilled around the outside edge. The motors never moved the temp gauge. After the rebuild to 540's at the end of last year and a lot of reading on here and the other site, I decided it would be a good idea to get a crossover with a bypass and try to regulate a little temp into the motors. I ran the end of last year and the first half of this year with no thermostats to keep the pressure down in the 540's. No heat on the temp gauges. This weekend I installed a beautiful set of Hardin Marine bypass crossovers. Painless install. Long weekend scratching my head/$$$! Both motors run at an indicated 130/135 with the 140 thermostats on plane. They both idle at 130/135 in neutral at the dock. The trouble I have is with the port motor idling in gear. It overheats when moving in gear. I can run it in neutral all day long with the starboard motor in gear and it's fine at 130, when I put it in gear, within a minute or two, the temp starts climbing. If I accelerate, it'll cool down or if I put it back in neutral at a high idle (1500 rpm's) it will cool down. First thing I did was to swap the thermostats, no fix. Next I replaced the raw water pump, still no fix.
I'm kinda stuck now. There are a couple of differences that I know of. First off, the starboard motor has a low water pickup and secondly it is about 5 or 6 pounds heavier on water pressure across the board. (15 lbs at 3k rpm versus 10 lbs on the port motor). There is no indicated pressure at idle on either motor but the pipes are dumping a pretty big amount
Any ideas what it could be ???
I'm kinda stuck now. There are a couple of differences that I know of. First off, the starboard motor has a low water pickup and secondly it is about 5 or 6 pounds heavier on water pressure across the board. (15 lbs at 3k rpm versus 10 lbs on the port motor). There is no indicated pressure at idle on either motor but the pipes are dumping a pretty big amount
Any ideas what it could be ???