My brother made an airboat and has been riding around in it for about a
year. It has a new Chevy 350 300HP "Hi-Po" engine in it, Weiand intake,
Carter 625 carb, and Mallory Unilite distributor. He calls me up and asks
if I would change his head gaskets cause he heard a "ticking noise". I am a
pretty good backyard mechanic. I go over their and just to appease him, I
didn't think the head gasket was blown, I tore into the engine. Immediately
I notice the some of the rocker studs were pulled up, some as much as a 1/4
inch. I took the heads to work and pressed them back down. I asked "does
this thing run hot?" usually heat can pull the studs up, he says "yes, all
the time". I start putting the motor back together and am about to fire it
up. I put the #1 cylinder at top dead to get a good start for the timing
then I notice no timing tabs connected to the timing cover to show where to
time the engine. I say "how did you time this thing?" he says "I just
turned the distributor until it ran good"(that's bad). I noticed a set of
bendable stainless exhaust pipes connected to a set of Headman stainless
mufflers in a pile next to his garage and asked "what happened here?" he
said that they get hot and get ruined, all burned up. He said that when he
drives the boat at night the ENTIRE exhaust from header to muffler glows
cherry red. I am thinking the timing was so far off the combustion cycle
wasn't through and fire was blowing through the exhaust.

So here are the questions: 1.) Has anyone seen an airboat run at night?
Does the entire exhaust normally glow cherry red like that? I could maybe
understand the headers glowing a little but not the entire exhaust.

2.) I saw a plastic holding tank with water in it and asked what's that?
He said it's the coolant catch can/reservoir. I asked why is the water
clear, are you using coolant? He said that it's weird, another person he
knows with an airboat also has that problem. Is this possible? The coolant
was definitely green when I drained the block. He claims it some how
separates and turns clear when it gets to the reservoir. Is this possible?