KFL 131HP questions

[Lee Dashiell]

I recently purchased a beautiful 17' Sportsman with a totally rebuilt KFL(131) dual updraft engine that runs flawlessly. It currently has less than 20 hours on it wanted to know if I need to "baby" this thing? I'm not rough on it by any stretch but wanted to get a better idea of what RPM I should limit the motor to when cruising and if I should ever run it wide open? What is the ideal cruising RPM? What is the WOT RPM? Thanks in advance!

[Bilge Rat]

I had a 17 foot Sportsman with a rebuilt KLC 120 HP engine. With the original prop, the WOT revs were limited to about 4000 RPMs. It did have a redone bottom that was clean and nearly flat in the aft planing section (important to obtaining maximum speed). I never did a GPS speed check but I felt it was performing close to the factory specs.

It is the prop pitch and diameter selection that limits the maximum RPMs and therefore holds the upper limit to the maximum safe RPMs. I didn't run it at max unless it was a flat calm day on the water and normally cruised at around 3000 - 3200 RPM. That was comfortable and the boat was nicely on plane.

At 20 hours, it is just beginning to come out of the break-in period where you have to be careful about max RPM. As I recall, this is discussed in the owner's manual on new engines.

The Chris Craft archives should have information on the engine manual, correct prop number and the upper limit on the KFL RPMs.

[Bilge Rat]

Here's a link to the manual on a KFL. It says RPM limit is 3800. It talks about 10 hours as the break in period but no sustained high RPM running, whatever that means.

woodie.ppworks.com/references/docs/OperatorsManual.pdf

[Lee Dashiell]

Perfect, Thank you!