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Prior to this engine, the temp gauge seemed correct? Clean the canon connector and check all those gauge connections and try using one of those temp guns at the the points along the way. On a hose mine takes a long time to warm up to 160. Maybe close to 10 minutes.

Did you do a compression test? You could have leaky exhaust manifolds instead. Test it before you pull it apart.

Is your engine a multiport injected one, or throttle body injected?

That sucks that it happened in the middle of the summer! Hopefully my experience will help you out and get you back out there. Yeah definitely do that. I had towels covering every inch of carpet. I also removed the rear bench and the observer seat to minimize the chances of ruining something. I also pulled the doghouse out of the boat, that made everything way easier to work on. For the torque specs and instruction, I used a Clymer's Indmar shop manual. This book has every instruction you need to take it apart and more importantly, back together. This thing has been super useful not just for the work I did on the head gasket, but on my friends' Malibus and their issues. https://www.amazon.com/Indmar-Inboard-Manual-Engines-1983-2003/dp/0892879769 The name of the shop is Fast Times Motorworks INC. I never dealed with them directly. My buddy owns a mechanic shop who was helping me with the rebuild. He's the one who had previous business with them, so he was the middleman because he gets better prices with them. https://www.fasttimesmotorworks.com/ While I was working on it, I ended up replacing a lot of stuff just because it was apart and I had the time. Some stuff needed it like my raw water pump looked pretty worn out and my exhaust hoses were collapsed. So just inspect everything as you take it apart to see if it has a lot of wear. My engine had 1150hrs on it so a lot of parts were at the end of their life span. The only thing I can think of that wasn't in the book was to put the lifters in oil a day before you put it back together to pump them up.

A good place to look for poor electrical connections is the engine harness connector. Your model may have split male pins. If so, use a small blade to very gently pry the split pins apart to get better contact with the female sockets. Use a bit of grease or spray oil to keep oxygen away when you put it back together.

Maybe not. Consider checking the group buy page.

Since this started with the engine swap, I would guess that someone didn't get the hoses on correctly.

If it was empty the boat would not move

Hello, I purchased a 2006 Malibu 23' LSV with the 8.1l vortec engine with 700 hours on it a little over a month ago. The person i bought it from clearly knew nothing about engines/maintenance and said he just paid the local malibu dealer to maintain it. He said he was just services with all new fluids right before I bought it (engine oil looked brand new so sounds reasonable). I've driven it about 10 hours since i got it with no issues. Today I decided to check the transmission and the v-drive fluids. V-drive oil looks brand new and at the full mark but the transmission dip stick was bone dry. i hooked up the hose and ran the motor for 5 minutes and checked again with no reading. My guess is the dealer drained it and forgot to refill it. I'm trying to figure out how much transmission fluid I need. Tag says it's a VF 63 C. Is that the "in-line" transmission that requires 1.7 quarts of oil? Below are some links to a photo of the transmission tag (can figure out the "Insert image from URL). Any chance i didn't cause permanent damage to the transmission? i also stuck a longer stick in the transmission to try and see if there was anything in there and it came out dry. https://photos.app.goo.gl/t3XwSUYpVcRyCvJ97 https://photos.app.goo.gl/eQyX9iCp9MWGJYLPA

From my computer, I vote fuel issue. Not much to the throttle control. Could be all or one of the following. Fuel pump. You can test it by putting a pressure gauge on and watch to see if it moves as your speed fluctuates. You might be a victim of "fuel hammer". I bet you have solid metal fuel cross lines. Though my boat would do what you describe around 22-24 mph. The fix is to add a piece of rubber fuel line in the crossover. You can buy one, or make your own. Also could be dirty fuel injectors, they have small internal filters. For around $250 you can get them rebuilt. I'd start with the fuel pump and go from there.

QuntionMc. I have old foil off manual wedge off my 2000 sunsetter. I will upload pics later to see if it will work for you. I am headed out to dinner so it could be tomorrow..

HUSUKU on amazon has some reasonably priced options. Hella Marine has what looks like a nice product too. They are more money for less output, but are probably better in every other way.

I have a 97 Sunsetter lxi, with a fuel injected 5.7ltr 320 monsoon motor. My boat won't hold steady at 28mph, when i try to hold steady at 28mph it will either increas to 30mph or fall back to 26 mph. when it falls back i can bump the throttle up and get it close to 28, but seems that i have moved the throttle farther than i should have to, and then after a minute or so the boat will accelerate up to 30-31, if i try to decelerate, it just falls back to 26mph. The boat will hold steady at up too 26mph easy,27mph with some fiddling, 30mph and up no problem. I have tuned it up, plugs wires, cap rotor, fuel filters, ignition components, Icm, throttle positioning sensor, new throttle cable. The motor seems to run smooth, with no hesitations. Thought I might have fixed it last season, found a kinked fuel line. But back to the same frustrating problem this year. After i thought i fixed it last year i added perfect pass to the boat, I don't think it has anything to do with the speed control, it seems to work well up to 26/27mph and 30 mph and up, but it doesn't work well at 28mph, it can't keep up with the changes in RPM. Could the problem be in the throttle control? Fuel Issue?

I installed Aqua Blue LED's from AquaLED's 11 years ago (I bought them before everyone found out the owner was a real piece of work and is no longer in business, thankfully). Well, one is dead and one might as well be dead with the .1% output of what it used to put out. 11 years sounds good, but for a trailered boat that rarely used them, there is no reason they should have died...but alas, they were as good of quality as the guy who made them. Who is the go-to for them now? I only use these 1-2x a year, so some $1000 pair of RGB lights isn't going to happen. I am also looking for a surface mount vs. something I need to cut a big hole in the transom...though I'm not fully opposed to doing that as I've drilled many a hole in this boat over the last 13 years (damn, it is time to upgrade).

Just seeing this, my family ended up with the 2016 G23 but they just upgraded to a 2021 G23.

Replying to my own post to keep the thread as neat as I can... I talked at some length to Wet Sounds about this. They currently are running a sale on white ICON8s for $599/pair. Shipping was free. The rep was QUITE helpful. Here is what I learned so far: The cans for the new speakers are slightly different than my stock 2017 ICON8s (rounder, no gray insets). We believe the tower is pre-wired for the second set. Ill know soon - Worst case is I add a jumper to wire in parallel. I have the 500W tower amp, it should recognize the new speakers without changing the tune. Should produce MORE sound for the surfer. The frequency response will of course be the same - louder, not necessarily better. Wet sounds provides the bolts and spacers to mount to my existing x-brackets. Frankly, wish I had bought the second set when I built out the boat, but they were the casualty of budget. Figured I could always add the second set, and here I am. Its a RELATIVELY inexpensive upgrade - figured it was worth a shot. In my usage, it is really ONLY an issue when I have a surfer out. Since we have young children in the boat frequently, what I really need is MORE sound at the tower, and let me balance out some of the interior (so interior speakers are not blasting directly into young ears). For the money, my research says a FAE is probably the best stereo upgrade I can buy... that is on my radar, but have not started that project yet as my lake is at 5030' altitude on a 2249 high altitude prop, and I really don't want to sacrifice any power if I don't have to. As it is, tachometer is at 3500-3800ish RPM to maintain 10.8-11mph. I don't have a ton of headroom. Sounds like Wet Sounds will stand behind them if it doesn't work out, but I think it will. Speakers arrived today, and I expect will be installed this weekend, and first test next week. Ill update with results. Hope this helps some others...

@derekt2 - cover your carpet before you start. Look up bolt torque and sequence steps online, lots of info on the web, aim at reputable sources such as Summitt Performance, Jegs etc.

+1 on electrical- a good idea is to go through all the electrical connections and as noted read voltage from battery out to the ancillaries (ign switch, coil, starter, etc). Does the boat have Perfect Pass? If yes review their trouble shooting guides.

Sounds like an electrical issue. Get a meter on your 12v and see how stable the voltage is when the symptoms you describe are present.

When I punch the throttle, after a second or 2 at high rpm I hear the dash beep like when I'm about to start the engine, and it hesitates/dies very briefly, a fraction of a second, then keeps going. If I keep the throttle high, it happens repeatedly or it dies all the way. It seems like there's a signal from somewhere that shuts off the engine for that quarter of a second. When I bring the throttle back down to neutral, the engine revs really high then very slowly comes back to idle rpm, over the course of 10-20 seconds. This high rev only happens after the hesitation/ beep. At first I noticed this issue after running it a while. The next time I went out it happened the first time I punched it. Otherwise if I run low to mid power, there are no issues. What I've done: recently replaced the ICM (from an Old Cadillac because they're discontinued), replaced the fuel pump (the inlet filter was clean), replaced the battery, replaced both fuel filters, checked the kill switch (testing it doesn't cause the same behavior), tested the transmission temp sensor by shorting it (it causes a beep but doesn't kill the engine). My gage is faded badly so I can't see the oil pressure number. I don't know if a relatively low pressure reading for a 1/10 second would kill the engine. Thanks in advance for any ideas!

@justgary those are SUPER nice Manifolds 🤩 They look like they probably cost more than I paid for the boat 🤑

Heres mine I did this year on my Craz. I was able to get a cover from Moomba still and had my upholstery guy modify it and add in a step.

No…wife is driving, I could never or would ever try that.