BLOWN ENGINE - NEED ADVICE

[lakesuperior]

I have a hole in the engine block of my 2007 AR230. I brought it to a dealer and they quoted me $18,000 to replace and repair. They wont work with a used or rebuilt engine. Needless to say I feel sick right now. I paid $30k 3 years ago and spent about $4,500 on new seats upholstery. I owe plenty on the boat. This is really bad for me.

Any advice on rebuilt motors and respectable places that would do this work?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Might as well throw this out there..... very likely user error on overfilling the oil and it spat it out and sucked it back in the intake.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I have a hole in the engine block of my 2007 AR230. I brought it to a dealer and they quoted me $18,000 to replace and repair. They wont work with a used or rebuilt engine. Needless to say I feel sick right now. I paid $30k 3 years ago and spent about $4,500 on new seats upholstery. I owe plenty on the boat. This is really bad for me.

Any advice on rebuilt motors and respectable places that would do this work?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Might as well throw this out there..... very likely user error on overfilling the oil and it spat it out and sucked it back in the intake.

What engines does it have ?

 

[lakesuperior]

MR1 HO 160HP

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Okay, there is a guy on here that is selling two low hour 1.8L engines.. thought maybe that would help you out.

 

[lakesuperior]

Okay, there is a guy on here that is selling two low hour 1.8L engines.. thought maybe that would help you out.

I will look at that. Thank you

 

[dgfreeze]

I'm not sure the year range, but there have been quite a few people who have yanked motors out of jet skis. Just remember, there are several variations of the MR-1. Be sure you get the HO version. Memory might be wrong, but I *think* they came in 110, 140, and 160 hp versions. Another option would be to get an SBT engine. You'll get wild feedback when you look into others who have used them, though. Seems some have wonderful luck, and others have terrible luck. I would also recommend finding someone who works on jetskis to help you. Dealers don't want to mess with boats as old as ours. I am pretty sure they basically just price themselves out of jobs specifically so they don't have to deal with it. Jetski mechanics might push back a little, but if you offer to yank the engine, it might change their outlook. Keeps a large boat off their lot, and makes it much more in line with their normal procedures.

Lastly, make sure your ECU didn't fail, and cause an injector to hold open, which will DUMP fuel into one cylinder, causing fuel to mix into the oil, and potentially hydrolock the engine.

 

[lakesuperior]

Thank you.

Lots of research yesterday. I found another dealer that has and will work with SBT motors. They are going to store and do the work over the winter. Estimated labor of $2,400.

This still hurts but nothing compared to the $18,000 I was originally quoted.

Any opinions on rebuilt vs. new SBT motors.? There is a decent price difference.

 

[Ronnie]

If you go with SBT buy the one with the two year warranty NOT the one year warranty. Personally, I would look for a used 2006 to 2009 FXHO Waverunner (like the one pictured) it has the same engine and horse power (1,052 cc / 160 hp) as the one blown. By getting the whole ski, even if the hull is beat up, you also get the ecu Incase yours is bad. Also there is demand for some of the left over parts which will help reduce the overall costs.

I’ve had a ski with an SBT engine and it ran fine for years but they are said to use cheap parts especially in their motors that they offer a one year warranty on. Moreover, they want a working core trade in so you have to have the block repaired to deal with them. Also, buyer pays shipping of the core to them, the new engine to the buyer and back to SBT if a warranty claim arises.

I dont know what you shop charges by the hour to swap out and in a motor, here in NCal it’s $185 per hour. I recently swapped two motors out of and into my boat in the driveway, actually my mobile mechanic did it with my help. It should only take about two or three hours with the hardest part being breaking the engine mounting bolts free and you can do the swap with a standard cherry picker.

Finally consider reaching out to @finnrigged . He was parting out an SX and may have what you need. Boat Stuff - FS Parts 2008 Yamaha SX230HO (various)

Good luck with whatever route you take.

 

[dgfreeze]

I too would probably go the jetski route if I was able to find one. The ECU will work as a backup, but my understanding is that some kind of "flip over" sensor can cause some extra steps to be taken to bypass. If you do go with SBT, I would definitely go with the new components. Rebuilds are too often an inheritance of someone else's problems.

 

[lakesuperior]

If you go with SBT buy the one with the two year warranty NOT the one year warranty. Personally, I would look for a used 2006 to 2009 FXHO Waverunner (like the one pictured) it has the same engine and horse power (1,052 cc / 160 hp) as the one blown. By getting the whole ski, even if the hull is beat up, you also get the ecu Incase yours is bad. Also there is demand for some of the left over parts which will help reduce the overall costs.

I’ve had a ski with an SBT engine and it ran fine for years but they are said to use cheap parts especially in their motors that they offer a one year warranty on. Moreover, they want a working core trade in so you have to have the block repaired to deal with them. Also, buyer pays shipping of the core to them, the new engine to the buyer and back to SBT if a warranty claim arises.

I dont know what you shop charges by the hour to swap out and in a motor, here in NCal it’s $185 per hour. I recently swapped two motors out of and into my boat in the driveway, actually my mobile mechanic did it with my help. It should only take about two or three hours with the hardest part being breaking the engine mounting bolts free and you can do the swap with a standard cherry picker.

Finally consider reaching out to @finnrigged . He was parting out an SX and may have what you need. Boat Stuff - FS Parts 2008 Yamaha SX230HO (various)

Good luck with whatever route you take.

Thank you very much for that thorough advice.

 

[lakesuperior]

I too would probably go the jetski route if I was able to find one. The ECU will work as a backup, but my understanding is that some kind of "flip over" sensor can cause some extra steps to be taken to bypass. If you do go with SBT, I would definitely go with the new components. Rebuilds are too often an inheritance of someone else's problems.

Thank you very much.

 

[itsdgm]

So sorry to hear about your engine issue. Personally I’d stay away from sbt and go with a used waverunner engine. Years ago, I had an issue and I was able to find a replacement engine to drop in my boat as a cheaper option. Swapping an engine on these boats isn’t really that difficult. The hardest part was finding a good donor engine. Since then, they are much harder to find. Whatever route you go, 18k is a quote from a shop that clearly doesn’t want the work but is willing to do it if you’re crazy enough to spend that kind of money.

Find a shop that works on waverunner and get quotes from them to work on it. In my case, the waverunner shop doesn’t work on boats, but was willing to work on my engine if I brought it to him. He just didn’t have the room to store boats. So I pulled the engine and just brought him the engine.

Anyway, best of luck with your decision. Hope it all works out for you.

 

[finnrigged]

Take a look at Partzilla to verify but I am 99% positive, actually 100% positive, that the ECU computer in the WaveRunners is not the same one as our jet boats. I've looked it up before and I know that I came up with different part numbers but take a look and verify for yourself of course. I have had both SBT remanufactured fxho Motors and the 100% all Chinese fxho clone Motors that I have installed in waverunners. Hit and miss at best. There is no difference between the motor with the one-year warranty and the motor with the two year warranty though. It's just a longer warranty and you pay more for it. I know this as an SBT dealer. Personally, if I was having to put one of those two in my boat I would choose the 100% all Chinese parts. My theory being I would rather have something that the Chinese engineered part for part to fit together instead of trying to match Japanese Parts with Chinese parts and hoping it works. While I have personally not seen failures of the remanufactured SBT mr1fxho Motors I have red many anecdotal stories about that over the last 10 years. If I had a choice of buying a crashed Yamaha FX high output with the mr1 or purchasing something from SBT at equal price I would always purchase the OEM used motor as long as the compression test was perfect and as long as it was a fresh water waverunner. I will no longer ever purchase a saltwater WaveRunner. I've seen the insides of them and it's not worth your time trust me

 

[Ronnie]

There are members here that have replaced their broken ecus with ecus or that have different part numbers, as long as the engines they were mated to are the same the replacement ecus will work/keep the engine operational. However, you may lose functionality the boat once had like the cruise assist. This is true between Waverunner as well. I sold one with a bad eco to a guy that rents them out. He dropped in an ecu from another model year and the ski was ready to rent out the next day.

I’m not saying replace your ecu with a different model but if you original ecu is bad you should consider if if you don’t have the budget for a new ecu or you just can’t find a perfect match replacement. The ecu in my 2006 fx140 when bad around 2011. The new price at that time was about $1,200 i have no idea what that part costs today or even if there are any available new

 

[finnrigged]

Yes, gotcha on the usability of the alternate ECMs but just didn't want people reading this to think that they are all the same and completely interchangeable with full feature expectations. I have three ecms for the Yamaha WaveRunner that I would sell for $450 each but the jet boat ecms used have been selling at $900 each around the Houston market. Had a guy drive all the way down to Houston from Dallas to purchase one of mine from my sx230 part out. It seems that when the ecms go bad it is typically a stuck fuel injector relay. More commonly heard about in the FX high output and fx140 waverunners probably because of the vast number of those being sold compared to Jet Boats. There is a business in California where you can send the ecms to and they will cut the back of them open and install upgraded fuel injector relays and then they seal it back up giving a 6-month or maybe it was a one year warranty. Total cost if I recall correctly is $400 plus you pay for round trip shipping so it's actually a little better option than purchasing an unknown used Waverunner ECM for my skis. Now I'm curious if they happen to offer the service on the sx230 and other jet boat ecms as well. I know that when you contact them they have certain time periods and cut offs to get your ECM sent to them to make it into the build run For that particular model. Maybe they have a time where they do a run on SX230 as well? When swapping an ECM from a WaveRunner to the jet boat equivalent I wonder what happens in regards to the tip over sensor. I know that I studied the wiring diagram on the jet boat versus the WaveRunner and of course there are a few of the pins that do not correlate on each of them. One of those pins is the tip over sensor that is on the waverunners. I would assume that the computer would sense that the tip over sensor is not present and send an alarm at a minimum or would it disable power from being sent to the starter unless it is jumpered? Now you've got me curious...and curiosity always costs me a day of reading and calling dang it! LOL.

My Motors both need rebuilding before they could be sold unfortunately. They did have water ingestion so I would not trust them myself unless they were completely torn down to the bearings and rebuilt.

 

[Ronnie]

Yes, gotcha on the usability of the alternate ECMs but just didn't want people reading this to think that they are all the same and completely interchangeable with full feature expectations. I have three ecms for the Yamaha WaveRunner that I would sell for $450 each but the jet boat ecms used have been selling at $900 each around the Houston market. Had a guy drive all the way down to Houston from Dallas to purchase one of mine from my sx230 part out. It seems that when the ecms go bad it is typically a stuck fuel injector relay. More commonly heard about in the FX high output and fx140 waverunners probably because of the vast number of those being sold compared to Jet Boats. There is a business in California where you can send the ecms to and they will cut the back of them open and install upgraded fuel injector relays and then they seal it back up giving a 6-month or maybe it was a one year warranty. Total cost if I recall correctly is $400 plus you pay for round trip shipping so it's actually a little better option than purchasing an unknown used Waverunner ECM for my skis. Now I'm curious if they happen to offer the service on the sx230 and other jet boat ecms as well. I know that when you contact them they have certain time periods and cut offs to get your ECM sent to them to make it into the build run For that particular model. Maybe they have a time where they do a run on SX230 as well? When swapping an ECM from a WaveRunner to the jet boat equivalent I wonder what happens in regards to the tip over sensor. I know that I studied the wiring diagram on the jet boat versus the WaveRunner and of course there are a few of the pins that do not correlate on each of them. One of those pins is the tip over sensor that is on the waverunners. I would assume that the computer would sense that the tip over sensor is not present and send an alarm at a minimum or would it disable power from being sent to the starter unless it is jumpered? Now you've got me curious...and curiosity always costs me a day of reading and calling dang it! LOL.

My Motors both need rebuilding before they could be sold unfortunately. They did have water ingestion so I would not trust them myself unless they were completely torn down to the bearings and rebuilt.

I sent my bad ecu to Carmo in Chico, CA back in 2011. I think this is the same company you are referencing. They listed that they repair fx Waverunner ecus on their web site. The fees were $150ish for diagnosis plus another $250 if they repair it excluding shipping. Mine came back about a month later in a box in a box from the Netherlands. They drilled and filled the back with 15 to 20 small holes and the post it on it said not - repairable. At least it only cost me $150 and around four weeks of waiting. I Don’t know anything about the tip over sensor but it’s definitely something to consider, if the ecu is looking for a non tip over single and but doesn’t receive one because there is no physical sensor in the boat, the engine may not start.

There has to be a member here or on Yamahajetboaters.net that have replaced their boat’s ecu with one from a Waverunner.

 

[buckbuck]

My 2008 212X has a line in the YDS that polls the "slant detector" for off or on. Is this the tip over sensor being referred to?

 

[finnrigged]

Not certain. I know that in the FX high output Waverunner there is a tip over sensor inside of the actual black electronics box where the ECU is housed. Inside of my 2008 sx230 jet boat, neither of those boxes had tip over sensors in them. The wiring diagram is different as well for some of the pins on the boat versus the actual WaveRunner. Not exactly sure what the consequence is and what wood or would not work with a swap like that but it is interesting for sure. I'd love to hear of someone who actually installed one straight out of an fx high output just to know exactly what will and will not work on the boat after it is installed.

 

[Motosports MD]

I have a hole in the engine block of my 2007 AR230. I brought it to a dealer and they quoted me $18,000 to replace and repair. They wont work with a used or rebuilt engine. Needless to say I feel sick right now. I paid $30k 3 years ago and spent about $4,500 on new seats upholstery. I owe plenty on the boat. This is really bad for me.

Any advice on rebuilt motors and respectable places that would do this work?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Might as well throw this out there..... very likely user error on overfilling the oil and it spat it out and sucked it back in the intake.

Call @Motosports MD 440-724-0618