How fast should a Challenger go and other NEWBE ?s

[cvuxton]

We just bought a 1997 Seadoo Challenger and took it out this past weekend for the first time. We suspected the boat hadn't been run in over a year. We added new gas and oil and off we went. After the initial terror of it missing, coughing, belching smoke, and going about 10-15 mph it finally caught on and went a little faster. There was just the two of us in it. After it was running smoothly it got up to about 35-40 mph without excess smoke or other problems. I'm going to replace the plugs next.

I have a few questions:

1) How fast should this beast go?

2) When we returned after an hour or so it had about 2-3" of water in the engine compartment. We opened the drains and got all the leaves and sticks out (yeap) and then cleaned the engine. Next time I plan on running with the rear deck up so I can see what's happening and what may be leaking. To be honest I don't know if the auto pump was working but it seems this is a little too much water to be in there.

3) Finally the gas gage doesn't work (we put 10 gals in). All other gages seem to be reading fine. Do these have a history of bad gages or sending units?

This boat is in good shape and we are very happy with it but know very little about them. We have a jet ski but this is our first seadoo boat.

Thanks for the help.

Chris

 

[scary]

40-45 mph topspeed

Gas gage goes bad yes mines bad to

2'3 inch of water in compartment sometimes will happen depending on waves i was out in 4-6 footers on sunday yeeee hawww and when pulling out was suprised to see as much water come out but we did crash through a bunch of waves and was all wet.

 

[cvuxton]

The saga goes on and water problem solved...I hope

Thanks for the reply. I took a flash light and had a good look at the back side. Some of the water is coming in around the exhaust. The gasket is cracked all around so that has to be it. I ordered new gaskets and will try again next week. At $126 I think and after market fuel gage is in order.

 

[vilord]

Do a search on here, you can get a replacement sending unit for the gas guage from seadoosource.com for cheap (under $30).

Have fun replacing the exhaust gasket, I just did mine, wonderful fun! Don't forget to put some RTV on there between the gasket and the fiberglass.

Top speed, you might be able to get more out of it with some work, mine tops out around 45 right now, but KustomKarl says he had his boat up to 52/53 GPS speed after tuning the carbs/adjusting the throttles/renewed seals on the jetpump.