Looking at a 32' Express wondering about power

[270win]

It's not a SeaRay...

It's a Wellcraft 32' Express Cruiser with twin 5.7's and I'm wondering about it being under powered. I had one with 2 454's and it would fly for what it was. I seem to recall 37 or 38 mph at WOT and it would cruise with zero tabs at 3200rpm in the 20's.

Anyway, I know torque is the name of the game and a small block is not the same a big block. I know there's a weight difference but it's probably not enough to offset the power difference.

We had a 1992 Chaparral 28 Signature with twin 4.3/alpha drives (190 hp ea) and it was a PIG! WOT to hold plane with no tabs and it might have ran low 20s. I'm NOT wanting that again!

Most of the time I'd plan on displacement cruising at "cocktail" speed...but when you need to go, I'd like the option.

Thoughts?

 

[src]

I have a 2000 310 Sundancer with 7.4's and Bravo 3 drives, and it will move quite well. I cruise at about 25-28MPH at 3000 RPM, depending on how heavy it is. I hit about 40MPH at 4100RPM (having trouble with WOT, so don't know top end at the moment, but it should be close to 43-44). However, I'd be very lucky to see 1MPG, and it's usually closer to .85MPG overall.

A co-worker has the same boat, but with 5.7's (350 Mag) and V-Drives. He cruises in the low to mid 20's at (I seem to recall) 3300-3500 RPM. His top end is much lower than mine, in the low to mid 30's. However, he gets better fuel burn than I see. If I recall, he sees 1.1-1.3 overall. I could be mis-remembering the details on his boat, but the general gist is that it's going to be the combination of the engine and drives that determines your performance. 5.7's with outdrives would land in-between my numbers and his.

He seems pretty happy with the performance he gets, but it's really going to come down to personal preference, and how much you want to trade off power for fuel burn. The 5.7's should be fine, unless you plan on frequently running very heavy, either with lots of passengers or full tanks and cargo.

 

[270win]

It's a land locked lake that has fuel available everywhere so carrying lots of fuel and water isn't the norm. Usually just me, my wife and our two daughters. As long as it'll plane and run without straining their guts out I'd be happy. The URL below is a video of our old 32 express cruising our lake the last run I made after selling her...should've kept that one!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGD6-WmY1Ls

 

[dpmulvey]

A friend had that boat. Several of his friends did as well. His had 454's. Theirs had 350's (5.7's). They had to struggle at the top end of cruising RPM to even try to keep up with my friend. He told me that he could not go to a much lower RPM without falling off plane. They burned a lot more fuel.

I'd pass.

YMMV

 

[270win]

A friend had that boat. Several of his friends did as well. His had 454's. Theirs had 350's (5.7's). They had to struggle at the top end of cruising RPM to even try to keep up with my friend. He told me that he could not go to a much lower RPM without falling off plane. They burned a lot more fuel.

I'd pass.

YMMV

At the end of the day and after watching my old video...I had a feeling that was going to be my conclusion too. I'll sea trial it. The boat is cheap. A business associate owns it and he just bought a vacation home and has landed his keester in a sling financially for it. But that doesn't mean I need to buy an undesirable boat. I had a 25' Amberjack with a single 260 in it...it was a slug. I liked the boat itself but it was just too dang slow.

 

[270win]

Confession, I like these with old Wellcraft Express cruisers with the 454's...but I'd really like a 340 dancers from the mid-late 80's. When I was 15-16 (1985-86) I would drool over these at the local SR dealer and spend hours on the sales dock looking at them. The dealer was always nice enough to let me spend lots of time on the boats even though they knew I was not in a position, as a 15 year old, to buy one.

 

[Saverio]

wow that is really nice the dealer would do that...
Things are different know

 

[270win]

wow that is really nice the dealer would do that...
Things are different know

I agree, it was something that made me think I'd buy a boat from them when the time came. Who would have known that a new 34 Dancer would be north of $300K?

 

[Pyrojodge]

Confession, I like these with old Wellcraft Express cruisers with the 454's...but I'd really like a 340 dancers from the mid-late 80's. When I was 15-16 (1985-86) I would drool over these at the local SR dealer and spend hours on the sales dock looking at them. The dealer was always nice enough to let me spend lots of time on the boats even though they knew I was not in a position, as a 15 year old, to buy one.

I love my 340... good luck with the hunt... what ever you decide.

 

[Gofirstclass]

5.7's vs 7.4's comes down to a question of how fast do you want to go between fuel docks.

I had two different 330 Sundancers with 5.7's and loved 'em in both boats. A friend had a 330 with the 7.4's. On a 300 mile round trip he burned about $100 more fuel than I did, and that was in the early 2000's when gas was cheap.

My 5.7's got right at 1mpg on plane running between 3200-3500rpm's (depending on load) and ran around 22kts at that rpm range. Everyone talks about how darn fast the 7.4's are compared to the 5.7's, but you're on a freaking inland lake. How damn far are you going to run where you need to have that extra 2mph speed as a tradeoff for the lower fuel economy?

 

[270win]

5.7's vs 7.4's comes down to a question of how fast do you want to go between fuel docks.

I had two different 330 Sundancers with 5.7's and loved 'em in both boats. A friend had a 330 with the 7.4's. On a 300 mile round trip he burned about $100 more fuel than I did, and that was in the early 2000's when gas was cheap.

My 5.7's got right at 1mpg on plane running between 3200-3500rpm's (depending on load) and ran around 22kts at that rpm range. Everyone talks about how darn fast the 7.4's are compared to the 5.7's, but you're on a freaking inland lake. How damn far are you going to run where you need to have that extra 2mph speed as a tradeoff for the lower fuel economy?

And therein lies the debate in my mind. Most of the time it'll be cocktail speed to a cove to hang on the hook all weekend.

I do like the ability to get to the slip quickly (relatively) in the event of a pop-up thunderstorm...or if we did want to get somewhere a little faster we could. It's about 50 miles from one end of the lake to the other.

I spoke to the owner of the Wellcraft yesterday. He is desperate, but he told me that he's had several people that were interested only to pass on it because they said it was too slow. I'm going to do a thorough look Monday and if the cosmetics aren't ridiculous then I'm going to go for a ride. The engines are brand new (100 hrs) and I know the marina that built them. He's done some good maintenance mechanically speaking and supposedly everything works well. I did tell him that my primary concern was the smaller engines and I wanted to see how if does on plane and cruising. But even in his desperation he kept saying that it's a cruiser, not a speed boat. I get that, I just don't want what I had in my Amberjack. It was WAY too slow.

 

[JVM225]

I'm not sure about the weight of the boat you're looking at, but I can tell you that my fairly heavy 30' Sundancer fly's with twin 5.7's and Alpha drives spinning 15.5 X 17 stainless props.
It jumps up on plane as soon as I push the throttles forward, and in normal conditions at 3200 RPM I can cruise at about 30 MPH. That is just about the point before the secondary's open up on my motors. I can stay on plane down to a hair over 3000 RPM most of the time.
The boat was a real slug when I was running the 14.5X19 aluminum props that Sea Ray put on it, but the prop change made it feel like a different boat.
Based on my experience, I think the props are as important as the size of the motors.

 

[Gofirstclass]

270, I get it that you're on a land locked lake that's 50 miles long, but you need to realize that the 7.4 equipped boat is only going to cruise a couple of miles an hour faster than a 5.7 equipped boat. So that puts you at the far end of the lake just a few minutes faster with the 7.4 boat.

At WOT the 7.4 boat will run faster, but I don't know ANYBODY that cruises their express cruiser at WOT longer than it takes to get it up on plane. Once you open those secondaries that whooshing sound you hear is the gas rushing through the carbs.

Nobody knows where the price of gas is heading. I read all the time about people buying gas at marinas and paying close to $5/gallon. Do you really want to be burning all that extra fuel to get somewhere a few minutes faster?

 

[270win]

I'm not sure about the weight of the boat you're looking at, but I can tell you that my fairly heavy 30' Sundancer fly's with twin 5.7's and Alpha drives spinning 15.5 X 17 stainless props.
It jumps up on plane as soon as I push the throttles forward, and in normal conditions at 3200 RPM I can cruise at about 30 MPH. That is just about the point before the secondary's open up on my motors. I can stay on plane down to a hair over 3000 RPM most of the time.
The boat was a real slug when I was running the 14.5X19 aluminum props that Sea Ray put on it, but the prop change made it feel like a different boat.
Based on my experience, I think the props are as important as the size of the motors.

I agree with this. I do think that an I/O setup does perform better than a V drive with similar powerplants. This 32 Wellcraft is listed as a 15K lb boat. If this boat will plane and hold it at 3200 or so I'll be happy.

 

[270win]

270, I get it that you're on a land locked lake that's 50 miles long, but you need to realize that the 7.4 equipped boat is only going to cruise a couple of miles an hour faster than a 5.7 equipped boat. So that puts you at the far end of the lake just a few minutes faster with the 7.4 boat.

At WOT the 7.4 boat will run faster, but I don't know ANYBODY that cruises their express cruiser at WOT longer than it takes to get it up on plane. Once you open those secondaries that whooshing sound you hear is the gas rushing through the carbs.

Nobody knows where the price of gas is heading. I read all the time about people buying gas at marinas and paying close to $5/gallon. Do you really want to be burning all that extra fuel to get somewhere a few minutes faster?

I agree, I only ran the Wellcraft that hard running from a storm with LOTS of lightning once that I recall. But it was doing around 40mph which was pretty impressive considering the size of the boat.

BUT- you're points are very valid and appreciated. When I say the Amberjack was slow, I was running 3800-4000rpm to stay on plane with no tabs...below 3800 it would start wallowing back off plane. If this boat will hold plane around 3200 or so I'll be fine with that. I agree that 2 minutes faster going to the other end of the lake isn't worth the fuel burn or added expense.

I'll really know after we take a ride.

In looking, there are some aggressively priced boats in the older Sea Rays and Wellcraft. But the 340's are definitely priced on the higher end of the boats I'm looking at. I've been looking at 300's (V drive), 330's and 340's in SR from about 85-90 years. What would be ideal would be to find someone looking to get a NICE 22 cuddy in trade. :grin:

 

[270win]

So the Admiral and I ran up to the lake to sneak a peak (with the sellers permission) at the Wellcraft. It's rough. Mechanically it looks to be nice but we didn't mess with it because they weren't there. She mainly doesn't like the styling.

She likes the 300-370 Dancers and the 390 Express. So there you go. It makes it easy when you bring upper management along!

 

[Gofirstclass]

If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

I'd suggest keeping here well in the loop any time you go looking. Trust me when I say it pays huge dividends.

 

[270win]

If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

I'd suggest keeping here well in the loop any time you go looking. Trust me when I say it pays huge dividends.

The funny thing is that she's really easy to deal with. The first few boats we had she really didn't like but because she knew I liked them she didn't say anything. But I could always tell she didn't love the boats. Now she says she's willing to give her input too so we can get what we really want and make it ours. She's a keeper!:grin: