loud SN

Agreed something odd is going on. My dad's 98 is barely audible at idle speed with the hull hugger. All you can here is the normal exhaust noise of it passing through the pipes/glass down tubes.

Even my 85 is quiet to me but I love the sound of the stock mufflers.

Upon loosing one exhaust flapper, my boat sounded markedly different/louder at 15-25 mph.

therefore i inquire, is your exhaust flapper torn away or missing?

Greetings, antique boater, from a fellow '96 sport owner. I, too, wish my boat were just a little quieter, but it's not too bad sitting in any of the locations in front of the motor, and definitely the worst in the stern seat, anywhere from minimum planing speed to about 25 mph.

I have considered the FAE option, but I don't want to restrict the performance of my boat in any way from the factory setup. My wife and I have a set of fitted musicians' earplugs that we can wear for longer rides (with 9db filters in, everything sounds quite realistic, just a little softer...works great at the movies, too). Since I'm a whisker cheap, and may need to replace another manifold sometime in the next year, I'll probably leave it all alone.

I miss boating in the hill country - I'm a UT-Austin grad and used to take drives up there for grins with friends, and got to pilot an old 1980 stars n' stripes Mastercraft on lake Travis in the early 2000s...back when there was water in there!

I haven't had time to read all the posts, but has anyone suggested that you might not be pumping a full amount of water to the cooling system? The way those engines are set up, they give priority to the engine cooling, and excess water goes straight to the manifolds. So if your pump isn't delivering a full amount of water, it won't show on the temperature gauge. How old is your impeller? Is the inside of the pump worn? Are you using a genuine Sherwood impeller? (Sierra impellers don't have the same design, no matter what the catalog says)

You can do a volume test if you want: Take the hose off the top fitting of the water pump (the outlet) and stick a garden hose in the hose going to the thermostat housing to supply water to the engine while you do this test. Put a piece of 1" hose 3-4 feet long on the fitting where you took off the engine hose. Turn on the garden hose, then start the engine. The water coming from the pump should fill a 5-gallon bucket in 16 to 20 seconds. You are looking for a minimum of 17 to 20 gallons per minute at 1200 to 1500 rpm. The formula is: Gallons divided by seconds, times 60 = gallons per minute.

Nice looking boats; welcome to the site. Where the sand-hill is Buchanan Dam???

Sharp looking boat. Go Team Red!

I have the FAE. I took it off for a while so I could hear the exhaust note but the kids asked me to put it back on (due to fumes). With it on, the water spray noise is more than engine noise. You lose about 2 mph from top end.

BTW, Pete I have that sound meter too!

Morfoot wrote: You guys are slacking..... "LOUD PIPES SAVE LIVES!" Seriously though, nice fleet of boats you have there and welcome to CCFan!

Uhhh Tim, you are 17 posts too late, as I previously posted the established acronym LPSL there...

i'll see if i can find one and start the testing!
In the meantime, hope everyone has a great weekend. and enjoy the water!

Too loud? Too quite? Ears too old? Ears too young? I think it's time to get some viable data and really get down to facts. We need tests so get one of these out and start checking!



BTW, all tests need to be done on the A scale and we'll set a distance of say 6' from the transom. The 6' will allow owners of VD's to still stay in the boat. At different RPM's would be great as well.

"Nice looking Sport by the way!"

Thanks!

Yeah he's got something else going on. There are several people (me included) who purposely eliminate the hull hugger altogether because it is so quiet you don't get any sort of engine noise, mostly just transmission whine. I'll admit that with a straight exhaust, our Sport is a little louder than I would like, but I like it much better than with a properly functioning hull hugger.

Our 96 platform would vibrate as well. Didn't seem like it was enough to write home about but maybe you have something else going on back there.

C-Bass: no. it looks like this and i replaced it right after i bought the boat. it helped a lot but not enough. the sound is mostly coming from the transom so i would think it's the exhaust that i'm hearing. and maybe vibration of the swim platform caused by the exhaust.

antique boater wrote: i haven't figured out how to post photo yet. when i do i'll post some.

It's real easy. Use the "post reply" and not the "quick". Click on the tree icon with the up arrow. The box that comes up allows you to browse your computer.

BTW, we've got plenty of antiques here to keep you company!