480ce, what must be done upon purchase?

[John Kelly]

Looking at 2004 SeaRay with the 480ce engines.  This particular boat has low hours, less than 500 in salt water.  Providing the engines reach WOT and are propped correctly to the 450 fuel burn (which I assume will require some prop tweaking) what is required in order to have a stress free ownership with these engines?  Can I be confident all is well given they are propped to the 450 fuel burn curve  or is replacing the heads absolutely necessary?  And if so are they still impossible to find?  

I’m sure it’s a relatively small number of us who worry constantly about this stuff but I just want an idea of should be done upon the purchase.  Raw water side cleaning is a must, for sure.  

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[John Kelly]

Thanks for the thoughts.  Aside from the engines looking cooked and ran hard for those short 400hrs, the rest of the boat is pretty beat.  On to the next….

[Rob Schepis]

Wow, yes for such low hours to see that extensive heat damage deep into the aftercooler like that tells you there was a nut behind the wheel with a need to get from A to B.  That boat was either at rest or in a hurry.  The head work is a must.  In case you need a visual to show as to it not being so easy to burn paint:

2 users thanked author for this post.

Woo, Tony Athens

[Tony Athens]

For only 500 hours, that is the most discoloration I have ever  seen–They have been so hard so long times that  even the top steel bracket mount for the aftercooler has been at 250-300F+..  If you buy the boat, work $10000-15000 into the deal and replace the heads or both before it costs you 3-4X that.

 

Crazy………..

[John Kelly]

Good info, thanks.  Wasn’t sure if this was a normal discoloration or more to the extreme and indicative of being run hard, high EGTs, etc.  

[Steve Lewis]

That’s about what I expected to see

The discoloration on the turbo piping and the aftercooler tells a pretty clear story.  Those engines have been run pretty hard.  I have the product sheet from Sea Ray on that model and you are looking at a boat that weights about the same as mine but is about 6 feet shorter and 5 inches narrower.  That’s a lot to ask of these engines.  Also Sea Ray does you no favors when they prop these boats.

I wrote an article on buying a diesel powered boat.  There are things in there you will really want to take to heart.  Like the maintenance records, the sea trial and fuel burn etc…….  Also how hard did the previous owner run the boat?  That engine should be cruised at 2200 and burn no more than 13.6gph at 2200.  So both engines would get you 27.2gph @2200 rpm.  That is what will keep them healthy.  They have been run hard so figuring out how hard should be on your priority list.

It’s counter intuitive but you might be better off looking at the boat(s) with the higher hours as they may have done a lot of work on them since they have lots of hours.  More time to encounter issues and then fix the issues.  Whereas the low hour boat is probably a ticking time bomb…..

Give the attached a read and then post more questions.

[John Kelly]

Here are a few pics for reference.  

[John Kelly]

It would be an 04 42 Sea Ray Sedan bridge.  Boats I am looking at range in hours from 400-1700 and I suspect all have the original heads.  I figure if I go down this path I will immediately tweak the props.  As for speed, it is mostly at causing speeds with bits of no wake thrown in. Not looking to be a speed demon but whatever the recommenced RPM is for cruise is where a lot of the running will be so I’d guess somewhere around 2000-2300. I also don’t think this will be our forever boat.  Probably keep it for 1-2, maybe 3 years at the most before moving on to the next.  

[Steve Lewis]

Do you like to gamble?

John,

Which model Sea Ray are you looking at?  Just curious.  My wife and I ended up buying a 2005 460 Sundancer last April.  After a long search and missing out on our desired boat, newer 48 Sundancer with QSC’s, we bought the boat which has 480CE’s with just shy of 600hrs.  We knew going into it that we were buying an older boat, that cost quite a bit less than the 48, and it would need some spending.  I am not a gambling man so I fully intended on reducing pitch in the props, adding Pyro’s for measuring Exhaust Gas Temps, servicing the entire cooling circuit, changing out fuel filtration and “The Cylinder Heads”.

We budgeted for all of this because our intended use of the boat is to cruise long distances in the Great Lakes and I want a reliable boat that I do not have to worry about.  So it was a deliberate choice to spend a little more than half of the price difference between the ’05 and the ’07 to “fix” things.  We are also updating the navigation electronics so I am lumping that in with all of this.

Do you have to replace the heads? No you don’t.  BUT, if you don’t then you at the very least must get the fuel burn down at or below the 450 curve and then operate the boat in a Very Prudent fashion.  If you are going to run at hull speed and just enjoy the scenery I would not worry too much.  But if you are going to ask all that these engines can reliably give then this man recommends replacing the heads.

If you search and read the posts of those that have had to replace heads after implosion then you see that it costs about the same to fix 1 imploded engine as it does to proactively replace the heads on both.  Give or take.  For me, it is insurance against a huge complication.  The parts appear to be available now.  We tried it last year and heads were no where to be found.  Our trusted mechanic found them in September of last year and bought them immediately.  We are having the big work done over the next 3 months as we are tucked away in heated storage.  As I am writing this, we have a foot of snow and we are getting more right now……

It all comes down to your own tolerance……  We can not really answer the question for you just tell you our own stories and then you can decide where you land on the scale.

My wife and I have owned many Sundancers and we like this one as it is capable beyond our weather tolerance AND it is familiar and the two of us can handle it very comfortably.  I am able to single hand it with the addition of the thruster remote that is part of the work effort.  That all adds up to a cruising platform that will fit our needs and we can enjoy the trip without having to constantly worry about the engines.  I spent an entire season worrying and It is worth the money to me.

Hope this helps…….

[Author]

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