[bones774]

Hi All,
Still looking for a Mariah boat, have another question. Would a 1998 Mariah with the v-6 motor have those poorly designed "batwing" manifolds, seller shows a half pic of motor area and it appears it may have them? Thanks for the help.

[brucedennis1]

I have a 98 mariah with v6 4.3 and it had them on. Not sure why you say they were poorly designed. I would of replaced them with the same ones but they no longer making them. Maybe thats why though. If you have to replace them ebasicpower.com has them for around 1000 bucks for the kit. You will have to paint them though. good luck

[bones774]

I'm just a newbie but there is a thread on this forum that strongly suggests immediate replacement and many other forums as well, and from my understanding , yes, that is why they are no longer available.
As for me looking for a Mariah or any boat, 1k just for parts is a strong consideration to be figured in the purchase price of that boat, then it's at least a day of your own labor or pay a marina a good 5-6 hours of labor. Would rather not have them on boat or have previous owner do the replacement.
Thanks for your input though, glad they have been fine for you. Just keep an eye on them, search for the other thread.

[brucedennis1]

Well, because I wasn't the orig. owner, I went ahead and replaced them with the kit mentioned earlier. Not bad to do. Took about 30min to get old ones off and about 3-4 hours to put knew one on. Clean, paint, put plugs in, etc. Ran boat and retorqued. Will have to keep drain plugs from old ones.

[bones774]

It's good to hear you had such an easy time of it, I hope when/if i have to do it i get same results.

[WetWilly]

Hi brucedennis1, glad to here the replacement went smoothly, now get out there and have some fun!

[otisroy]

I've got a question on this one. I need to do the conversion on my 4.3L, but I was also looking to pick up the Edelbrock intake manifold and 4bbl carb. I read somewhere that if you have the batwing manifolds then you don't have the Vortec heads. Any truth to that?

-Chris

[brucedennis1]

Not sure. I am pretty sure that my valve cover says vortec on it of course that might not mean much. Probably one of the other guys probably knows better than me.

[otisroy]

Thanks a bunch, I'll check it out tomorrow when I head out to the lake.

[otisroy]

Yup, mine say Vortec too so I should be good to go to get the Edelbrock manifold, carb, and calibration kit.

When I bought the boat, it had just come back from the shop where it'd had the head machined and four blade 19 pitch prop installed. It's only turning about 4100 rpm at WOT so I need to check the drive ratio and cable adjustment.

I'm not sure where the boat started it's life, but I'm running it about 4500 ft. My dad built Searays for years and he suggested I check the drive ratio since I'm on the cusp of high altitude.