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Levitator New Heads?

N

North Idaho

Member
This is my second American Airboat, I just had it shipped from Texas last week. I took it out and the temp was pegged in short order…stuck thermostat or the 2,100 mile tow ride created some air lock in the cooling system. Flushed & burped the system, took it out and ran at 180 degrees. Bring it back home, wait a week take it out for opening weekend of the duck season….ran fine for 30 minutes, shut it down for a moment, fire it back up and it pegged the temp. Gauge. Run into town grab a new thermostat, run it for 30 minutes, runs fin. But the fill tank above the cage is hissing fluid out of the cap….bad cap? Get a new cap and it blows the little line running to the overflow tank. Obviously the system is being pressurized and I’ve come to the conclusion I bought a boat with 140 hours on a 6.0L levitator engine that has a blown head gasket.

working through the scenarios of repair, do I put some high performance heads on it while they are changing out the gasket? any other suggestions to beef it up and get a little extra hp. It’s an 18 foot air ranger, American airboats.

any suggestions are appreciated!
 
If you are gonna do heads you need to consider the whole package. I was about to say you want to do cam too, but realizing it's a blown motor with a locked EFI system, you gotta consider the whole package.

If you put new, higher flowing heads on it but don't change the tune, your gonna have a lean motor, likely to blow again. Any other changes just throw the tune further off. I wouldn't change a thing but the head gaskets (both while you are there) without a lot of research.
 
I'm just curious if you got a steal on the boat knowing it had engine issues prior to purchase or if they sold it to you as a turnkey, low hours used boat? You are alot calmer than I would be if I had an engine blow on a newer boat with 140 hours. How old is the boat and engine?
 
North Idaho said:
This is my second American Airboat, I just had it shipped from Texas last week. I took it out and the temp was pegged in short order…stuck thermostat or the 2,100 mile tow ride created some air lock in the cooling system. Flushed & burped the system, took it out and ran at 180 degrees. Bring it back home, wait a week take it out for opening weekend of the duck season….ran fine for 30 minutes, shut it down for a moment, fire it back up and it pegged the temp. Gauge. Run into town grab a new thermostat, run it for 30 minutes, runs fin. But the fill tank above the cage is hissing fluid out of the cap….bad cap? Get a new cap and it blows the little line running to the overflow tank. Obviously the system is being pressurized and I’ve come to the conclusion I bought a boat with 140 hours on a 6.0L levitator engine that has a blown head gasket.

working through the scenarios of repair, do I put some high performance heads on it while they are changing out the gasket? any other suggestions to beef it up and get a little extra hp. It’s an 18 foot air ranger, American airboats.

any suggestions are appreciated!
Click to expand...
North Idaho said:
This is my second American Airboat, I just had it shipped from Texas last week. I took it out and the temp was pegged in short order…stuck thermostat or the 2,100 mile tow ride created some air lock in the cooling system. Flushed & burped the system, took it out and ran at 180 degrees. Bring it back home, wait a week take it out for opening weekend of the duck season….ran fine for 30 minutes, shut it down for a moment, fire it back up and it pegged the temp. Gauge. Run into town grab a new thermostat, run it for 30 minutes, runs fin. But the fill tank above the cage is hissing fluid out of the cap….bad cap? Get a new cap and it blows the little line running to the overflow tank. Obviously the system is being pressurized and I’ve come to the conclusion I bought a boat with 140 hours on a 6.0L levitator engine that has a blown head gasket.

working through the scenarios of repair, do I put some high performance heads on it while they are changing out the gasket? any other suggestions to beef it up and get a little extra hp. It’s an 18 foot air ranger, American airboats.

any suggestions are appreciated!
Click to expand...
Hello,
Running a LS 6.2 SC 2017.
Had overheating problems. Went to a 165 T stat...drilled another hole in the rim as well. Still had overheat problems. Finally, the solution was a bad remote supercharger water pump. Is yours supercharged?
Additionally, added Water Wetter to the antifreeze system in both radiators...seems to run very cool, way below the original spec 195 T stat. It however runs the best it every has since I bought this air boat.
Hope this helps.
Eastbay
 
EastBay said:
Hello,
Running a LS 6.2 SC 2017.
Had overheating problems. Went to a 165 T stat...drilled another hole in the rim as well. Still had overheat problems. Finally, the solution was a bad remote supercharger water pump. Is yours supercharged?
Additionally, added Water Wetter to the antifreeze system in both radiators...seems to run very cool, way below the original spec 195 T stat. It however runs the best it every has since I bought this air boat.
Hope this helps.
Eastbay
Click to expand...
I had rigged one of these out on a new build, brand new crate engine with harness and all, built a separate cooler for the supercharger, even looked at the owner's corvette plumbing, copied that, ran great but would go into de-rate at times, well it went into de-rate while he was running about 114 MPH, lost thrust and the boat blew over, built new cage/rudders etc, got it back running again, I told him that he needed to have the program mapped from day one, well once back together he took it to a tuner, got it mapped, well it also turned out that the supercharger cooling system must be stand alone, I had it plumbed from the cold side of the heater port and back to burp tank, as the vette is, no good.
Re plumbed it, good to go.IMG_7553.jpg
 
SWAMPHUNTER45 said:
Lucky to be alive !
Click to expand...
Yep, had he'd stabbed the brake, would've likely saved a bunch of work, the grassrake in the picture is of a boat I built in 1988, the young man driving it got to witness how these machines could KILL you if you don't respect them.
 
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