Heater

[bilbao]

How hot should the blown air be that comes out of the heater. Mine just seams to get warm and is not enough for wet chilled kids.

[Pistol Pete]

Obviously, the heat is coming from the motor's cooling system. So, if the motor is running at 160* I'd say the heater should be blowing something around 140* You're gonna lose some heat from the length of travel of the hot water and you'll lose some from the air blowing over the heater core.

[soft2]

How hot should the blown air be that comes out of the heater. Mine just seams to get warm and is not enough for wet chilled kids.

Mine gets pretty warm but if you're wet and chilled nothing is warm enough. Your engine has to be warmed up and running to get heat. If the lake water is real cold then sometimes it will cool off if the motor is just idling. The best thing is a hot water shower. Do whatever it takes to keep your kids on the water.

[Lovetoski]

How hot should the blown air be that comes out of the heater. Mine just seams to get warm and is not enough for wet chilled kids.

My dealer had to "reroute" mine...it never got warm enough until the rerouting was done.

[bilbao]

Do you know how they rerouted it?

[VinRLX]

Your boat likely came with the Y fitting installed after the impeller. If you move it to before the impeller, you will get noticeably more heat at idle (though not as warm as you might like) and also a bit more at speed.

[Bill_AirJunky]

Get the Y fitting. It definitely helps.

[Lovetoski]

Do you know how they rerouted it?

Yes I believe the other two people answered how they did this. That was the only thing that fixed it!

[Matt_Alger]

I too have little (actually no) heat coming out of my heater even after leaving it on for an hour. It just blows cold air. The "Y-Pipe" is connected after the water pump but before the oil cooler on my Hammerhead. I would say that this is actually a return line, not the supply line for the heater. If so, it also seems that the "Y" is angled the wrong way... ie the return "Y" from the heater is pointed upstream (toward the water pump). A few questions:

1) Is everyone's return line "Y" pointed toward the water pump and if so why? Would it help significantly to simply turn the "Y" around to the less restrictive flow direction?

2) Why do you need the closed loop return line at all? Why not just dump to the lake? My only assumption is they want to make sure that enough water stays in the cooling system of the engine but if people are plumbing back to the intake of the water pump they would suck more out of this loop in the system than simply opening the outlet end to atmosphere. Pressure before the water pump is certainly below atmospheric pressure.

3) If I plumb to before the water pump can I expect a significant difference at idle on cool mornings but lake temps above 60F?

[skier92]

The Y is installed with the heater leg pointing toward the raw water pump so that the water flow from the pump towards the oil cooler draws water from the heater, thus the other hose between the heater and intake manifold is drawing hot water out of the engine. Turn the y around, and you will push cold, incoming water thru the heater to the engine.

Have read here of the Y being relocated to before raw water pump, and increasing hot water flow through heater at idle. Without any confirmation from Malibu, msy guess is they do not put the y prior to the pump as it may cause delays in priming the raw water pump with pickup water at startup.

[Matt_Alger]

The Y is installed with the heater leg pointing toward the raw water pump so that the water flow from the pump towards the oil cooler draws water from the heater, thus the other hose between the heater and intake manifold is drawing hot water out of the engine. Turn the y around, and you will push cold, incoming water thru the heater to the engine.

Have read here of the Y being relocated to before raw water pump, and increasing hot water flow through heater at idle. Without any confirmation from Malibu, msy guess is they do not put the y prior to the pump as it may cause delays in priming the raw water pump with pickup water at startup.

I think we are saying the same thing about which way the "Y" should point.... The side with 2 openings (one large diameter and one small) should point toward the waterpump. The side with one opening should point away.

[Aquanut]

I am having a similar problem. Last fall my heater worked great, my kids were always using the snorkle and it was plenty warm even at idle. I winterized it and now this spring I can not get any warm air coming out of it. I have let the engine get really warm - still nothing. Any ideas?