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380 hammerhead 5.7 2004


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Finally I think we have a strong lead on a 04 sunscape lsv 23 with the hammerhead 380hp 5.7L. I know nothing about the hammerhead, just want to make sure this engine had not had any major issues back in the day 2004. This sunscape has no ballast system in it at present. How hard/expensive would it be to add ballast to a 04 sunscape two rear one midship and one bow all controlled at the dash? Anything else I should be aware of in regards to a 04 sunscape w/ a hammerhead, before I send a deposit over tomorrow? Still have not come to a final price on the boat, but we are only apart about 2,000.00 dollars and should not be a problem. Thanks you all for your time and knowledges in helping me spend some additional cash this quarter. It still is a long road to go to get this boat back home, but at least I have a good boat to start to make a deal on. Keep your fingers crossed....

monk..

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How many hours are on the boat? If its over 200hrs chances are you will be ok. If it is a low hour boat, run away, now. The 380 Hammerhead had a bad run of heads in 04 which caused the valve to hang up and consequently hit the top of the piston. Just saying :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle:

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My 2004 HH would set off the low oil pressure alarm from time to time. Other than that, I got 800 trouble free hours out of it before I sold it. I sold the boat to an Indmar certified mechanic who checked the engine before he bought it. He declared the engine to be trouble free.

One issue you should be concerned with is the damper plate. Not part of the engine, but engine related. Mine blew at 75 hours. Do a search here and read up on it.

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How many hours are on the boat? If its over 200hrs chances are you will be ok. If it is a low hour boat, run away, now. The 380 Hammerhead had a bad run of heads in 04 which caused the valve to hang up and consequently hit the top of the piston. Just saying :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle: :whistle:

110 hours. Was this a huge problem, like it took all of 04 and part of 05 to get this cleaned up? Is there anything I can have this Malibu dealer do to check if this hammerhead has this problem? What is the repair if this would happen to this engine? The ball park cost for repair? Or am I just sitting on a time bomb and stay away form all 04 380 5.7 hammerhead engines now and forever? :blowup: Edited by Monk
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My 2004 HH would set off the low oil pressure alarm from time to time. Other than that, I got 800 trouble free hours out of it before I sold it. I sold the boat to an Indmar certified mechanic who checked the engine before he bought it. He declared the engine to be trouble free.

One issue you should be concerned with is the damper plate. Not part of the engine, but engine related. Mine blew at 75 hours. Do a search here and read up on it.

Did a search on damper plate, seems like this was a problem with Indmar engines across their product line, not just with the hammerhead. Is there anyway to know or check if a certain year Indmar engine could have this problems? Or is this a hit or miss kind of thing, no way to know until it hits you between the eyes on the lake. Was low oil pressure a problem in most all hammerhead engines or just in the 380 HP 5.7? Not feeling very good this AM about putting a deposit down on this boat with this hammerhead today. There has to be some kind of engine test to check for these problems???? Anyone have any ideas other than run at this point? I do not have a problem running if I see problems like these. But at this point I think there should be some indicators of one or all of these problems being present. I also think there has to be something a trained Indmar certified mechanic can do to check for these kind of issues before we purchases. Help.
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Monk,

I had an 04 with the 380 HH. It blew up 3 times, the last one Malibu even broke in the engine. Each of these failures were at approx 15-20 hrs. It is thought that if the engine went past that period, that it is probably o.k.. Indmar had a bad run of heads towards the end of the 380 HH being put into boats.

I believe wakegirl got over 200 hrs on her 380 HH. So like I said, if it has over 100hrs it maybe one of the lucky ones....

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I went from 15w40 to straight 40w and then straight 50w and the alarm stopped. I run my boat on a nuke lake with average summer water temps in the mid 90's. That might explain the need for thicker oil....I dunno.

I am no expert on the damper plate issue, but it seems to me if you plan to load your boat up with ballast you are flirting with disaster. I was pulling a rider up with 6 people in the boat plus full factory ballast and wedge when mine blew. Repair cost was around 2500.00. (warranty)

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Monk,

I had an 04 with the 380 HH. It blew up 3 times, the last one Malibu even broke in the engine. Each of these failures were at approx 15-20 hrs. It is thought that if the engine went past that period, that it is probably o.k.. Indmar had a bad run of heads towards the end of the 380 HH being put into boats.

I believe wakegirl got over 200 hrs on her 380 HH. So like I said, if it has over 100hrs it maybe one of the lucky ones....

Thanks Stewart for the follow up. Was all your problems related to the same issue valves? After the final repair was the 380 HH a good engine or did you always have problems? I called Indmar to get some clarification on the 380 HH engine. They did say they did have a few problems with some of the 380 5.7 HH's back in 04. It was not a large issue. The issue as it was explained to me was a person/persons assembling the engines, specifically the assembly and alignment of the vales. This was not done properly. He said GM now does all the valve assembly and they also have issues with some of their valve alignments. As an example they used was if Indmar produced 500 engines that year they had 30 problems or failures. He suggested If I had a question regarding this HH engine. I could have the Malibu dealer re-adjust the valves and rockers, that way I could sleep a night knowing there was not an issues with this HH 380? I am still thinking on this one.
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I went from 15w40 to straight 40w and then straight 50w and the alarm stopped. I run my boat on a nuke lake with average summer water temps in the mid 90's. That might explain the need for thicker oil....I dunno.

I am no expert on the damper plate issue, but it seems to me if you plan to load your boat up with ballast you are flirting with disaster. I was pulling a rider up with 6 people in the boat plus full factory ballast and wedge when mine blew. Repair cost was around 2500.00. (warranty)

Skyskier: Regarding the damper plate 1. Are you saying loading up any 380 HH with ballast wedge and people is a problem. or 2. Are you saying loading up any 23 lsv with the 380 HH with ballast a wedge and bodies is flirting with disaster? I just need some clarification. Thanks for the help.

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I am saying that loading up MY 2004 380HH was flirting with disaster. I have read about 3 or 4 others. I do not know what percentage of them have gone bad. When mine blew, my mechanic knew what it was as soon as I described the problem, so I would say the problem is well known. I would think the more you load down your boat the better your chance of having trouble, but I have heard of them blowing out on ski boats too.

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Thanks Stewart for the follow up. Was all your problems related to the same issue valves? After the final repair was the 380 HH a good engine or did you always have problems? I called Indmar to get some clarification on the 380 HH engine. They did say they did have a few problems with some of the 380 5.7 HH's back in 04. It was not a large issue. The issue as it was explained to me was a person/persons assembling the engines, specifically the assembly and alignment of the vales. This was not done properly. He said GM now does all the valve assembly and they also have issues with some of their valve alignments. As an example they used was if Indmar produced 500 engines that year they had 30 problems or failures. He suggested If I had a question regarding this HH engine. I could have the Malibu dealer re-adjust the valves and rockers, that way I could sleep a night knowing there was not an issues with this HH 380? I am still thinking on this one.

Yes. All of the were stuck valves hitting the piston. Indmar just bolts the parts together. They didn't have people there to balance and blue print the engine. They just took the heads off the 340 and added the higher compression heads to the engine. They had a problem with the GM heads and then also with Edlebrocks. Like I mentioned this was towards the end of the run for this engine. I went through 3 of them. Malibu finally warranteed my boat with a new one. They were just coming out with the HH 383 and the problem at the time was that the wiring harnesses were not compatible, so I got a new boat. Remember, I only had about 40 hrs total and the boat spend most of its life in the shop, so they lemon lawed it.

From what I understand, there were enough of those engines failing that Malibu did reverse engineer a wiring harness for the HH 383 to replace the HH 380. That is why you may see an 04 with a HH 383....

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Understand, thanks for all the information on your experiences with the 380 HH. Still up in the air on this engine/boat. I can not find a lot of information on this problem across the country. No idea how involved this problem got for indmar. No idea if this engine problem just had a few issues that were corrected early on and never showed its ugly head ever again. A little wishful thinking. I called Malibu today the TN. plant and talked to customer no services. You would have thought I was a reporter from 60 minutes or an attorney who want to find a smoking gun. "No sir no services bulletin", "Sir we do not show any service problem with the 04 380 5.7 HH in our records ever." I then explained I have owned a Malibu for awhile and love the product and want to buy another one. I just wanted to talk to someone before I bought one with a 380 HH. Because I had talked with indmar today direct and got some informations from them. And I wanted to check with them and their records to see how far reaching this problem was. Now I have talked to the Malibu plants over the years and have alway gotten to a real knowable person who really wanted to help me no matter what the issues was. Not just to a customer serve rep who typed the information I was requesting of them, and then reading back the preprepared statement off their computer screen. I no longer feel the Malibu love I am sorry to say. I understand the boat industry has changed and to survive you must change with the marked or get run over. I also understand if everyone called the plant to ask question they would never get any boats built. I think in all my years this was my 2nd or maybe 3rd call. I am sorry to see the old girl go. I guess I will just be one of those old timer down the road who will say one day " I can remember when I used to talk directly to the factory any time I want, to get an answer to one of my question." Ya the good old day's.

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I am saying that loading up MY 2004 380HH was flirting with disaster. I have read about 3 or 4 others. I do not know what percentage of them have gone bad. When mine blew, my mechanic knew what it was as soon as I described the problem, so I would say the problem is well known. I would think the more you load down your boat the better your chance of having trouble, but I have heard of them blowing out on ski boats too.

Thank SKyskier for the info. In no way do I want to flirt with disaster. I have more than my share of everyday disaster to deal with. In no way do I need an boat disaster to deal with Thanks again.

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I currently have an 04 lxi with the hammerhead 380. I am at 210 hrs with no problems that I know of. I am the third owner. I mainly ski the slalom course and do a little wakeboarding/barefooting and pull the kids on a tube. I don't have any balast and we rarely have more than 6 adults in the boat. I have had some problems with the low oil pressure switch but it's an easy fix. Seems I have read just as many people saying they have had no problem with this engine (if not more)as have had problems. I'm sure you can find people who've had problems with every engine type out there. Now, keep in mind I am crossing my fingers and knocking on wood as I type this.

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