Jump to content

Welcome to TheMalibuCrew!

As a guest, you are welcome to poke around and view the majority of the content that we have to offer, but in order to post, search, contact members, and get full use out of the website you will need to Register for an Account. It's free and it's easy, so don't hesitate to join the TheMalibuCrew Family today!

Heater Y-pipe install


Recommended Posts

A couple of months ago(back you know where), I posed a question about whether to plumb the heater y-pipe before or after the pump. Heatercraft says before, while Malibu installs them after. As a point of interest, 2 months have passed without an answer from Malibu as to why they do it after...

I ultimately installed mine before the pump and have since done a non-scientific comparison between mine and my buddies that was factory installed after the pump. Here are the results:

My '05 RLX with Y-pipe before the pump running down a 50 degree river on a 45 degree morning put out 121 degrees, and 118 degrees after about 1 minute of idle.

My buddies '05 RLXi with Y-pipe after the pump running down a 50 degree river on a 45 degree morning put out 116 degrees, and 108 after about 1 minute of idle.

Not earthshaking, but enough to prompt those doing new plumbing to follow Heatercrafts guidance.

Link to comment

I moved the pipe to before the pump on my 05 RLXi after the first time out, my friend across the lake still has his after the pump on his 05 RLXi. I have two 2 vent heaters and he has one 3 vent heater, I didn't check the temp but I do believe that I kick out more heat then he does. In my opinion the factory puts it after the pump because that line is easy to cut with out having a wire in it and thats where you would also get the water for the cold side of the shower.

Link to comment
On a 45 degree morning with 50 degree water, I'd say 5-10 degrees of extra heat is pretty significant!

I'm thinking that I would bump my 160 degree thermostat up to a 180 degree thermostat in those conditions - We used to do that on my buddies MC every winter when we were skiing, it made a huge difference to the heater output.

Link to comment

I would check with Indmar first, but we did it with no problems on his 91 ps190. It had the 351 ford/indmar in it. Now, with everything being computerized, I dont know what a temp change of 20 degrees would do, but I would think that it should still be in range.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...