Exhaust water output of the 5411

[Alan O'Dell]

I noticed an article recently about water and the 5411. I have a similar question. I own a 1980 Catalina 30 with a Universal 5411 engine. I noticed lately that the water volume coming out of the exhaust port is very small. However, the engine doesn't run hot. I have checked throughout the engine for blockages and everything seems to be working fine. The engine never did put a lot of water out the exhaust. I checked the impeller and replaced the thermostat, but output seems to be the same. The big question is... will minimal water being injected into the exhaust allow too much dry exhaust to damage my exhaust hose or fiberglass aqualift muffler?

 

[Joe Stradley]

5411 water discharge

Hi Alan, I have had very minimal water coming out my 5411 engine exhaust for the past 10 years. Thermostat keeps temp. between 135-150 and exhaust is mostly water vapor steam. Exhaust hose seems fine. It doesn't seem to take much extra water entering the mixing tee to keep the engine within it's temperature range.

 

[Bob Camarena]

Completely Normal

This is completely normal for the 5411. Most of the exhaust water is re-circulated to a T-fitting just inboard of the raw water intake to mix with incoming cool water. Therefore it doesn't have the strong exhaust stream that other boats have.Just get used to well-meaning observers pointing out that you don't have much water coming out of your exhaust but make a point to double check first since you might have forgotton to open the raw water valve. Two other things are:1) You will notice steam wafting about your transom which is a byproduct of the small amount of exhaust water hitting the hot exhaust gases. 2) You will also notice that your engine temp will fluctuate quite a bit until the block heats up and stabilizes. This is especially noticable in colder water.