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Big Block Power wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 12:00 pm Boy from my flip phone they all l really good and clean! Keep up the good work. This is awesome!
My money is on 303.

Had some good feedback from other folks on more products to test. Here's the current list. Have them all on order, should be able to get to the nitty gritty next weekend hopefully when everything arrives.:

* 303 fabric guard
* starbrite water proofer
* Trinova marine protectant
* Bayes High performance fabric protectant (indoor/outdoor)
* Nikwax TX-direct
* Scotchgard water & sun
* 303 Aerospace

Up to 9 products I'm testing now. Here's the current list:
* 303 fabric guard
* starbrite water proofer
* Trinova marine protectant
* Bayes High performance fabric protectant (indoor/outdoor)
* Nikwax TX-direct
* Scotchgard water & sun
* 303 Aerospace
* Dr Beasleys LeatherLock
* Dr Beasleys LeatherLock Pro

Got all 9 products applied a few days ago. They're all cured as of yesterday after 48 hours of sitting. Testing will start this afternoon

While all of the test applications are drying I cleaned up my wife's 650 and applied a good coat of the Star Brite waterproofer to it. Check out the results.

baktasht wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 9:03 am Got all 9 products applied a few days ago. They're all cured as of yesterday after 48 hours of sitting. Testing will start this afternoon

Screen Shot 2021-04-05 at 9.02.34 AM.png

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Awesome bts!....subscribed.

Video testing 9 different coatings on EVA foam (aka seadek, aqua marine deck, gatorstep, marinemat, etc...) is finally up. Its a long one, but worth the watch. I'm going to do two more followup videos as well, one to test durability of the coatings once left out in the sun for a couple weeks, and another to test the relevant coatings on canvas and vinyl.

If you want to skip to the final results watch the last 8 minutes. But I would encourage you to skim through the rest of the video, as the results are somewhat different for each coating and each stain test. Let me know if you have any questions,

Here it is:

baktasht wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 6:25 pm Been trying to figure put a place to add a handle to make getting up the extended swim platform easier. We finally settled on a side mount. Should help for us lazy adults. Ended up using this handle off of Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qqT9QB Bought a second one too, might add it to the other side maybe, still thinking about that.

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Did they have the hand holds as an option when you got your swim platform? I ordered mine with these, but I've never seen a platform with them so I hope it avoids adding something else for the less athletic soles on board.

rrfisher wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 2:57 pm

baktasht wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 6:25 pm Been trying to figure put a place to add a handle to make getting up the extended swim platform easier. We finally settled on a side mount. Should help for us lazy adults. Ended up using this handle off of Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qqT9QB Bought a second one too, might add it to the other side maybe, still thinking about that.

PXL_20210304_235718489.jpg

PXL_20210304_235714566.jpg

PXL_20210304_235706525.jpg

PXL_20210304_234716596.jpg

PXL_20210304_234325541.jpg

PXL_20210304_234322255.jpg

Did they have the hand holds as an option when you got your swim platform?
Hand Holds.jpg

I ordered mine with these, but I've never seen a platform with them so I hope it avoids adding something else for the less athletic soles on board.

Those look well placed. Post some photos when you get yours. Curious to see how you like them.

Replaced the old dated courtesy lights with new flush mount LED units w/ chrome trim. I went with amber to avoid attracting bugs at night as much as possible. They're about twice as bright as the originals, and the light color is actually fairly close too.

I replaced those ugly white oval courtesy lights finally. Went with some amber flush mount LED fixtures. The same Amazon seller also has other color LEDs as well. Links are all in the video description. Here is the video incase any of y'all are thinking about doing the same.

Just did alternator upgrade on the 8.2L. Went from the factory amp to a 105amp marine alternator. Charging about 3x as fast as before. Great upgrade for any of you V8 guys. I used this same alternator on my old 7.4L Mercruiser as well.

You can order this exact alternator here: https://amzn.to/3cfXdPQ​

Install on 8.2L (502). Video here:



Install on 7.4L (454). Video here:
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Out of curiosity, did you notice your batteries weren't charging completely? Did you upgrade the wire size from the alternator to the battery? I see a lot of people who upgrade alternators and they leave the 10AWG wire and they get so much voltage drop between the alternator and the battery, they don't get full output especially if you have the sense terminal of the alternator sensing the charge voltage at the alternator and not at the battery itself...something to think about.

If you have Faria gauges in your boat, upgrade that oldschool speedometer to a matching GPS Speedometer. I just did mine, and I had no idea how easy this was. I wish I knew sooner and had done it on my last 3 boats. Here's the step by step if you want to tackle yours:

bruceb58 wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 11:06 am Out of curiosity, did you notice your batteries weren't charging completely? Did you upgrade the wire size from the alternator to the battery? I see a lot of people who upgrade alternators and they leave the 10AWG wire and they get so much voltage drop between the alternator and the battery, they don't get full output especially if you have the sense terminal of the alternator sensing the charge voltage at the alternator and not at the battery itself...something to think about.

On my current 8.2 GSI, and also on my old 7.4 MPI the charge wire was 8 AWG, which should be plenty for this size alternator. But if you have a 10AWG charge wire then it's definitely a good idea to upgrade to a 8 or 4 AWG. I have 3x Group31 AGM batteries, so they are capable of taking a lot of amperage for charging. When we anchor and run the stereo for many hours the 2x house batteries get pretty drained and need to be charged up. With the factory alternator it would take a good 1.5-2 hours of driving around to get them back up to near full. With the new 105amp alternator it takes around 30 minutes.

Got the high flow intake finalized and ran it a handful of times on the lake. Power gains are more noticeable on this 8.2L than they were on my old 7.4L. Very happy with the results: