"Ralph Modica" wrote in message
...

Have recently discovered water in the engine oil. The dealer's mechanic is
telling me this is "Normal"

I have owned a wide variety of boats and I have never had water get into the
engine.

and may occur if the boat ingests water while coming
down off-plane too rapidly or even if water is splashed too high while
putting
the boat in the water at a launch ramp.

While it is possible that water can get ingested into the engine the likely
scenario is that it gets sucked into the cylinders and hydrolocks the
engine. You would know it if this happened to you.


Seems this is TOO easy an "explanation" for what I think is a defective
engine
gasket.

I think so too.

I've also heard water ingestion is a common problem on Volvo 8-cylinder
I/O
engines. There is apparently a problem with valve timing being off - this
allows
the intake stroke to pull vacuum while an exhaust valve is still open,
thus
sucking water into the cylinders. Has anyone here heard of this or have
further
details ?

I have never heard of this being a problem in a stock engine, but it can be
a problem with a modified engine. It is common for a "high performance"
engine to use a cam that has significant overlap between exhaust and intake.
The overlap really helps at the really high RPMs but it kills idle. These
are the engines that "lope" as they idle or simply won't idle below 1000 RPM
at all. Even in these engines it is only a problem if there is very little
drop distance from the elbow to the exhaust manifold. Again, if you sucked
water into the cylinder you would know it when you tried to start up again.

A more common hydrolock situation is the result of an engine that "runs on"
or "diesels" when you shut it down. It is common for these engines to
actually run backwards for a bit, which can really suck water up from the
exhaust. Again, first clue is that you can't crank the engine over again
until you pull the spark plugs and drain the water out.

No matter what, water in the oil is NOT normal.

Rod McInnis