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Marlin275
08-29-2005, 11:24 AM
I got water in the engine and need a new crate motor.
Do I need to stay with the Chris-Craft style crate motor,
where they turned the 350 around and draw power from the front of the engine?
Are all crate motors the same, some better than others?
Any option with these 350's in terms of stock power?

Trueser
08-29-2005, 11:29 AM
TRY www.michiganmotorz.com

Good luck.

gcarter
08-29-2005, 11:45 AM
I got water in the engine and need a new crate motor.
Do I need to stay with the Chris-Craft style crate motor,
where they turned the 350 around and draw power from the front of the engine?
Are all crate motors the same, some better than others?
Any option with these 350's in terms of stock power?
I'm not sure, but I think they did this to eliminate the bulge from the large diameter flywheel which allows it to be mounted closer to the floor.
Is this the scenario?

MOP
08-29-2005, 11:57 AM
All of your stuff will just bolt up to another block, question is what shape is the old Chris cast iron parts. My thought would be to pickup a Chevy to Volvo bell housing spin it 180 and get rid of the old parts, stick a new engine in with more common easy to get parts. It is a pretty simple swap, it gets rid of the extra Chris water hoses, Wye vavles etc. Down side is the starter will now be at the transom end a bit harder to get at, another thing to get rid of is the old style Mallory flat ditributer cap & rotor. You can get a regular tower cap which is far less prone to firing through the rotor and leaving you stranded.

Phil

Marlin275
08-29-2005, 12:50 PM
I'm not sure, but I think they did this to eliminate the bulge from the large diameter flywheel which allows it to be mounted closer to the floor.
Is this the scenario?

I talked to a guy who knows and he said
they did this to get the engine lower in the boat and to move it farther forward.

Phil,
Thanks for your input, I shot that off to the boatyard
to see if that is an option?

MOP
08-29-2005, 03:40 PM
I talked to a guy who knows and he said
they did this to get the engine lower in the boat and to move it farther forward.

Phil,
Thanks for your input, I shot that off to the boatyard
to see if that is an option?

Your buddy is 100% correct, that was done "strictly for inboard installations" but the engines were used in both applications. Lift the hatches on most old boat, they all seemed obsessed with stuffing everything as low as possible Zenith made some carbs that were ½ the height of today's, they had intake manifolds that would mount the carbs very low between the valve covers, risers no higher then the the highest point of the engine. They had to go to aluminum pans steel rotted in just a season or two, the hatches bearly cleared the top of any installation. They were trying to keep the CG down low and even more important keep the lines of the vessel pleasing. The big problem was with everything mounted so low the boats had a very bad tendency to ingest water through the exhaust. Chris built thousands of this type, many early ones ended up being used on I/O setups. Later on the Chris/Volvo had the flywheel aft, look at the drives X dimension that will tell you there is more than enough room for the flywheel to be on either end, there is about 4 inches beneath the pan no matter which way the Chris's were put in.

Phil