donzi matt

I pulled the trigger yesterday and started ordering parts with Larry at Raylar. Next season I will have the Raylar CNC heads, the 203 cam, ported stock intake manifold with a 90mm throttle body. The season after that I will do the stroker rotating assembly, the HO600 cam, and an exhaust upgrade. I would have loved to do everything at once, but my budget won't allow that. Fortunately if one of the stock pistons decides to exit stage left I have a spare shortblock I can put together.

I had an opportunity to buy a pair of 525's, but they had almost 600 hours on them with unknown history on the motors or the headers. They would have set me back 20 grand for the pair, I just couldn't justify that for motors that needed a full refresh. I really like the 496's, the boat is already rigged for them, so I am going to make them how I want and hopefully it works out. If I left the boat alone I would just get bored with it. I will try to document the buildup along the way including any pitfalls I encounter.

As a baseline, with the stock 2006 425 horsepower motors the boat will run a consistent 68 mph touching 69 on my lake, and touching 70 in salt water. That is spinning 26 pitch bravo 1 props at 4900-5000 RPM. The motors are bone stock, have the turbulators removed, and have right at 200 hours.

Ryan00TJ

I think you made the right choice. The pricing on used 525's is ridiculous. You should get a nice gain adding 200 hp to the cig. Keep us updated.

thirdchildhood

You would have come out ahead with two 525s for $20,000 but good luck with the Raylar stuff.

donzi matt

You really think so? At around 600 hours those motors need to be fully gone through. How much do you figure to do that? 5 grand a motor if all it needs is a refresh? And then we have the questionable Merc spec CMI headers with 600 hours on them. How long do you figure they will go for before a leak shows up? Remember I have no history on these motors. They were in a boat that was involved in an accident, the owner didn't make it, the boat was being parted out to cover bills. Maybe if I had a full history on those motors it would be a different story, but I saw a total investment of at least 30-40 grand realistically. Subtract 12 grand for what I could have sold my motors for and you end up at 18-28 grand out of pocket. And that gets me... 525 horsepower. Or I can dump that money into my motors, over the course of a couple of years, and end up at 600 horsepower. I know the condition of my current motors, they are very sound to build on, and I just wanted to do something different than the standard issue 502 based stuff. Call me crazy.

SB

Was that 525 boat local to us ? Sorry for quick derail.

donzi matt

No, halfway across the country, another thing they had going against them.

SB

Yeh, I wouldn't take the chance. Way too much coin to gamble on.

donzi matt

So in anticipation of my first round of parts arriving, I pulled the motors Friday night. A Cafe Racer with bravo drives could be the easiest boat I have ever pulled motors on, I actually really enjoyed it. It helps that if I put one of my lifts up enough to clear the fenders on the trailer I can back the boat all the way into my shop and get around both sides with my forklift. It's nice to stay warm and have tunes going, not to mention I can lock the doors and be left alone while doing it.

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From there I got the first motor up on the stand. An 800 pound motor is about all I want to put on this 1000 pound stand, but it took it ok, and now it is ready for surgery.

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I had an extra hour today I could pull most of the accessories off to get access to the timing cover, pull the heads, etc. I pulled the power steering pump and raw water pump off because I will put my degree wheel on it and they would be in the way. If I wasn't going to degree in the cams then those could have stayed right on there. You also want to make sure you have a rugged puller for the balancer, they are not keyed as the 496 is an internally balanced motor so not only is the snout on the crank quite long, they are pressed on with some gumption. All the bolts on this thing are metric, so you will need some 10X1.5 bolts for your puller to make it work. A 3/8-16 feels like it will thread in, but it is loose and you will rip the threads out of the balancer, at which point you will be thoroughly screwed.

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I am done for now. Time to clean the floor up and get a bench cleaned and prepped for parts. I don't want to open anything else up until I have parts in my hand and according to UPS that will be Tuesday. I plan on popping one pair of valves and measuring the guide clearance as well as installed height but I won't go any deeper than that, I have never heard of anybody having a setup issue with the Raylar heads and the 496's are closed cooling so they are pretty thermally stable. Looks like the only gaskets I need so far are exhaust manifold gaskets. Everything else is designed as a reusable style gasket and they all look good so far.

Knot 4 Me

Following. My 2003, 400 hour 496 MAG decided to develop a death noise backing off the trailer in September. It will be coming out in December.

donzi matt

I lied, I decided to pull a little more apart today. The cam and lifters are in excellent shape, cam bearings look good. This motor already has Raylar's rockers on it from the previous owner upgrading them when he had the heads off. The rockers feel fine and the little AFN retaining nuts all look good, no cracks. I pulled one head and the cylinder walls look great, which I expected since compression and leakdown were perfect and these motors don't use a drop of oil.

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Of course, going to set the head back on the motor so I could cap it back up resulted in this:

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Split the pinky nail right open in the middle, stings like a sonuva*****. Oh well, no pain no gain.