You know Jim......I felt I was the only one out there for years as well, of course with my 1963 Elgin not a Hydrodyne. It was the feeling of being alone in loving and enjoying my old boat amongest the new wake board boats of today. How happy I was to find 5 1/2 years ago their were others out there like me....one of my biggest thrills has been my Lake San Antonio meets here in CA where the record has been 30+ classic glass in attendance and I was no longer alone in my passion. I have heard many who have had their family boat passed on to them, I have also seen many a post from those trying to locate the family boat of their childhood and some with success. One of the greatest stories I ever hear about what you could call destiny is this: A guy who lived in I think it was ID had purchased a boat in WA or OR. When he went to pick it up he was given the paperwork.........his brothers name was on it! His brother had passed away years before at a fairly young age and his boat was sold. Do you even question that his brother lead him to the boat years after he died? Just recently on another board there was a new poster who posted a story and a picture of his Dad and him standing in front of their family boat of years gone by. The son had seen an auction to be held and went to the preview. Low and behold their was his Dad's boat that he grew up with that was sold many many years before. He took his Dad to the auction with him and they had the boat back in the family! Warms your heart don't it! I hope my children find the same type of attachment to my little ol' Elgin, though not fancy, it is filled with memories for all four of them. Mark......ah, can relate to what your saying about who's fault it is......the driver! LOL! One of my friends has a friend who is a great and fancy skiier. She didn't want to pull him and ask me to with her boat. I found out why........he loved to give directions and tell how you were doing it all wrong with each pull! I only pulled him the one time! Of course I got my friend aside later and she said "Why do you think I didn't want to do it!" Boy, was she on my list that day! LOL!
Here's a preview of the BanoDyne dash. My fiberglass/paint guy came by last night and worked for two hours to adjust each hole and custom fit each instrument. He really does nice work. I couldn't be more pleased. I'll keep posting pictures as I get things done.
I like your instrument layout better than mine. It looks cool. I know these new motors have all kinds of warning systems on them, but based on my experience with warning system in airplanes, and based on the extremely high price of motors these days, I though I'd mention my thoughts on engine monitoring. My opinion---. The most important gauge is the water pressure. Without that, the motor will die. Mercury water pumps are not long lasting because or their small diameter I guess. When the pump starts to get weak and flow less, the poppet valve will close down a little to maintain pressure and the temps will start up because the flow is less even though the pressure looks OK. So, I like a head temp or water temp. Even better would be a gauge in each bank. The electronics are mounted to the exhaust divider in many cases and they are sensitive to temps. When the engine gets too warm the electronics get warmer too and they do not like that. I have had trouble in that regard. jim
Jim Thanks for the kind words Jim and Greg! I was worried that the panel is too busy but then, on the other hand, it is still pretty clean compared to the panel of the PA-32! Your advice is on point. It is good counsel. I've got a water pressure guage but I don't have a temp guage. I am having the Optimax warning light cluster guage put in (it will be on the lower dash, to the right of the helm). Do you think I should have a water temp guage in addition to the warning light so that I catch a high temp situation sooner? My current setup has one fairly expendable guage - the Ammeter - so I can swap that one out for a temp guage and will if you think I should. My local marine dealer told me that the Ammeter guages can be a problem because of their distance from the battery. They get hot. Options to resolve this include a separate shunt or some people actually mount the guage on the side of the deck, forward of the splash well, near the battery at the back of the boat. This shortens the distance to the battery and helps avoid heat build-up in the guage. Option No. 3 is to just scrap that guage and replace it with a water temp guage. I would think that there must be a water temp lead on the motor because the smartcraft system obviously has a water temp parameter. What do you think?
I haven't done any looking into the smartcraft, but on the I-Commands, they have an engine temp, but I haven't seen anything about an engine water temp yet. Also, I do not know if you will be able to get an actual temp reading from the smartcraft system to a regular gauge. It may just put out an overtemp warning signal that a standard multi function gauge can display. Your dealer should be able to find out for sure for you if they don't already know. I have found that there aren't very many people that know anything about the I-Commands around here. The two bigger dealers I have checked with so far haven't even sold any of them yet. I would assume it's going to be the same for the smartcraft. Good luck!
Thanks! It is just my opinion and observation, but it doesn't seem like the whole SmartCraft idea took off the way Mercury hoped it would. If you are using outboards in coastal areas and fuel burn parameters, engine efficiency, etc. are vital to trip planning to go long distances, then that technology can be very useful. The guages are very expensive and do not show you all of the information you usually get from a series of inexpensive guages unless you toggle between digital displays. I noticed that my local marine dealer doesn't seem to have had much experience dealing with them - which surprises me somewhat because they handle boats that are designed to be used on Lake Michigan. For a ski boat, I wasn't too interested in the price tag of the SmartCraft stuff. I studied it on line and found it to be very confusing. If the local Mercury dealer doesn't have experience with them, then I figured I wouldn't have had much luck trying to install them. It is my understanding that the Optimax is set up so that the the outputs for the Smartcraft parameters can be re-directed to regular guages. For example, my owners manual goes over the procedures for re-directing things like water pressure output and shaft-mounted pitot output for use with non-Smartcraft guages. You are essentially bypassing the sensors built into the motor and redirecting the tubes to your own instruments. I don't know if I can do that with water temp. or not.
I would say it's worth asking about. The cost can't be that high for a standard temp gauge, as long as it works without any adapters or anything too spendy.
