Exhaust hose overheat

[SquamInboards]

I'm also stumped. My biggest fear? You tear up your floor and don't even find mufflers there.

Ha! It's not loud enough to be straight-piped. But I hear you. That might kill me.

[chris young]

Someone here has to know, but my understanding is that these boats are straight piped and that the riser is what makes it quieter than if it were just straight pipes on a header or regular non marine manifold. I know that there is a Nautique at our club lake with the exact same motor as in my Rider, and it sounds much nicer, and it does have the muffler in the dog house.

[ngavchris]

Can you not just look up the exhaust pipes from the back of the boat. My brothers 83 Rider is straight piped. Worst case go to Home Depot and buy a wall camera. We use them and work and they would allow you to look from the engine side.
Good luck.....

[TitanTn]

Tearing up the floor really isn't that big of a job and just because you do it - you don't have to do a cap off restoration. I would consider cutting out a small section of floor over the area where the muffler is and figure out the issue. Replacing the small section of floor will be quick and easy.

[Jetlink]

Take the bad hose off the starboard side, set a light to shine down the 45 degree angle pipe before it runs under the floor. Go see if you can see a decent amount of light through the transom outlet. If no, then there are probably baffle in there forming a muffler of some sorts. As for the floor part, I ended up cutting out my floor again to allow access to both mufflers after I was stupid and did not allow for that the first time doing my restoration. I dropped my boat off at the winter storage today and will not be seeing it again until April next year but I will gladly help in any way I can.

As for the going insane comment and being stumped. We had every boat mechanic in the area and even Vince at SkiDim stumped and grasping at straws on mine. As soon as I looked at the port transom outlet I knew something wasn't right. As soon as I cut out the floor and removed the port muffler, my overheat issue was eliminated. There are ways to test various theories. My testing prior to that had me running the boat with 5 gallon buckets behind the risers to catch water and both filled up almost evenly. With the whole system together with the bad muffler there the disparity between the two on a volume level was more noticeable but not alarming. I was amazed at how just a small amount of increased back pressure on one side of the exhaust sent so much water to the other side because that offered a path of least resistance.

[Blackntan90]

My 2 cents...I once took a flashlight and looked up my exhaust from the transom to see what was in there. I saw a series of 'baffles' that alternated, 1 from the bottom and 1 from the top- so on all the way as far as I could see. Now this is on a 1990 Mariah with the 351. I too have the 45 degree angled pipe going under the rear floor. And after reading this, noticed one of my exhaust hoses looks like it could be getting hot- we also do a lot of idle speed cruising- miles at a time. I have been thinking about doing the stainless pipe section in place of the hoses you mentioned.

[NoWake]

This boat has been begging you for four years to pull up a couple sections of flooring. At least now you say to yourself... "I just had to". It will give you peace of mind. Good luck

[SquamInboards]

Someone here has to know, but my understanding is that these boats are straight piped and that the riser is what makes it quieter than if it were just straight pipes on a header or regular non marine manifold. I know that there is a Nautique at our club lake with the exact same motor as in my Rider, and it sounds much nicer, and it does have the muffler in the dog house.

I believe there's some sort of baffle/muffler structure in there because my boat is a good bit quieter than a couple others I'm familiar with, two that I know for a fact are straight-piped. It's not a huge difference, but it's there.

Can you not just look up the exhaust pipes from the back of the boat. My brothers 83 Rider is straight piped. Worst case go to Home Depot and buy a wall camera. We use them and work and they would allow you to look from the engine side.
Good luck.....

I'll certainly try this when I get the boat out of the water, probably this weekend. At least looking with a bright flashlight and/or trying to fish something through from the exhaust output.

Tearing up the floor really isn't that big of a job and just because you do it - you don't have to do a cap off restoration. I would consider cutting out a small section of floor over the area where the muffler is and figure out the issue. Replacing the small section of floor will be quick and easy.

Another issue for me is the rear seats in the Bravura/Mariah are framed out in fiberglass that's part of the cap. So, access under those seats isn't easy, short of cutting out sections of the seat structure. It's not like the comp that has a totally independent rear seat...

My 2 cents...I once took a flashlight and looked up my exhaust from the transom to see what was in there. I saw a series of 'baffles' that alternated, 1 from the bottom and 1 from the top- so on all the way as far as I could see. Now this is on a 1990 Mariah with the 351. I too have the 45 degree angled pipe going under the rear floor. And after reading this, noticed one of my exhaust hoses looks like it could be getting hot- we also do a lot of idle speed cruising- miles at a time. I have been thinking about doing the stainless pipe section in place of the hoses you mentioned.

That's very interesting, being that the 1990 Mariah is basically the same as my boat but with bow seats. I suspect my exhaust structure is the same as yours. AND very interesting that you have an exhaust hose getting warm.

I've thought about stainless pipes, but you still have to join the pipes to the riser and the floor pipe, AND the pipe could get really hot and melt the carpet on the engine cover - it melted it on mine, right through the silicone hose.

This boat has been begging you for four years to pull up a couple sections of flooring. At least now you say to yourself... "I just had to". It will give you peace of mind. Good luck

Yeah, I know. I need to look at the rear floor very closely and see how impossible it would really be. The biggest issue, as I mentioned, is the rear seat structure being a part of the cap. This also makes it really hard to get the fuel tank out. It's too big to lift straight up and out of the hole that the ski locker uses. Believe me, I spent hours trying.

[SquamInboards]

Thanks for all the replies on this. I'm probably pulling the boat this coming weekend, at which point I'll weigh my options. I should probably just order a new hose anyway, because I will need that no matter what.

Also, I've got enough in my boat savings fund to look seriously at a newer boat in the $15-20k range, and I've wanted a v-drive for a long time... or at least a bowrider. Hmm. Not that this particular nit-picking issue is a reason on its own to sell the boat, but I've been casually looking for several years. This boat has been great, and I always like to sell my stuff when it's working well with no major issues. This boat definitely meets that standard, if maybe you can't idle for more than an hour continuously.