The original 350q's have given up the ghost and I need to repower. The beauty of this boat is that the engines fit under the deck without any engine boxes, so unlike a bertram 28, it has a really nice big flat cockpit. But there is barely any clearance with the 350Qs. So I am trying to find a modern engine (fuel-injected or diesel) that would fit without requiring the deck to be raised. I believe the 350qs are pretty compact, I think 18 5/8" above the crank shaft. Does anyone know of anyone who has repowered a 28 SE, or have any bright ideas? Or should I resign myself to installing engine boxes?
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I struggled with the same problem. I also have a ‘72 28 Sports Express. I wasn’t ready to give up the flat deck so I had the Qs rebuilt over the winter. Have you looked at using down angle transmissions? It would probably increase the clearance under the hatch covers but I didn’t pursue it enough to try and measure exactly how much.
I wonder if fuel injected would provide the clearance?
I have the same boat, which was repowered in 2011 with Crusader 5.7 Captains Choice fuel injected motors, and they still had to raise the forward half of the cockpit.
Thanks James, I was looking a the Crusaders, so that's what I was afraid of. How do you like them? How's your cruising speed and fuel consumption?
My boat’s performance is not what I believe it could be. They stuck with 1:1 transmissions and small props, so it tops out around 25 knots and 1 mpg. One good thing they did was put in a single 150 gallon fuel tank.