www.iFourWinns.com

I am looking at purchasing a 2000 268 Vista Cruiser with a 280 5.7 Volvo. The boat currently has a raw water cooling system and has only been used in fresh water lakes. I would want to use it occasionally in salt water and am wondering how hard and expensive it is to convert the motor to a closed water cooling system. Thanks for the help

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2000 268 Vista "Reely Nauti"
http://www.facebook.com/#!/rivercruiser

The conversion to a closed cooling system is a bit involved .... and expensive. However, it can be done (Blessed had this done on his new FW, prior to picking it up at the dealer).

If you are planning on keeping the boat on a trailer, and just dunking it in the salt water once in a while, then you would be fine by just flushing it after each salt usage. By using a salt neutralizing product, like Salt-Away, when you flush ... this will neutralize the salts and keep everything spic-n-span.

This is what we do.

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Gordon Arnold
New Hampshire

2003 268 Vista ..................................................................Prior: 97 245 Sundowner

I had been thinking about the same thing as mine is used almost exclusively in salt water, but I always flush it after each use with Neutra-Salt. Last service they changed the impeller and gave it a thorough check over and commented on how clean it was internally. So I have decided to save the money and keep on flushing it.

In my case, I am lead to believe that the manifolds will last at least 8 years flushing Neutra Salt through the motor compared to 4-5 flushing with fresh water only, and with the cost of manifolds here in Australia it is really good value!

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Alec

2006 Horizon 190
VP 4.3GL/SX, Sunsport

I also have a raw water cooled motor used in salt. No idea of how many hours it actually has on it, but it did come from the midwest (freshwater lakes). It's been used in salt water at least 8 seasons, maybe 10. The year after I got it I changed the manifolds and thermostat housing. The thermo housing had flaking rust in it so I figured the manifolds weren't far behind, but I know they were original, because they had the '4.3 Litre' stickers OMC put on them at the factory. I backfill my engine with the -100 AF each season when I winterize, hoping that will prolong the life of the manifolds. So far the thermo housing I installed in 2003 looks much better than the one I took off so maybe that works too. Next motor I put in will be closed cooled from the get go.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Howdy,

I added a San Juan Engr closed cooling system to my 454 before I installed the engine. It works great.

The kit was about $700 ordered from http://www.oceaneastmarine.com/

There is a point that it's not recommended to install closed cooling. It's about 100hrs (salt) and I think 3 years old. Mine was never ran in salt and it was about 10 years old with 122 hrs on it. I very thoroughly flushed the engine with the soft plugs removed before I installed the system.

I did get a LOT of rust and sand out of my engine when I flushed it.


Regards,

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1987 Four Winns Liberator 211, formerly OMC 460 King Kobra powered, replaced in 2006 by a 1997 Mercruiser 454/Bravo III

I was thinking installing a closed system for my Vista's Volvo 5.7 L engine. However I was told that it's only a "half system" which would not include the exhause manifolds. Instead I decided to install Volvo's Neutra-Salt system. This way everything is protected. It looks easy to install and it works!

http://www.marinepartsexpress.com/prodb ... ng_kit.pdf

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Fred 248Vista
So much water so little time!