New Boater Looking at a '95 Sportster....Advice?

[lmsracing]

Hello all. I'm thinking of expanding my adrenaline habits from dirt bikes and street bikes to the water....

Im looking at a 1995 Sportster with the twin 85hp rotax motors. Boat seems to be in good shape for a 12 year old boat...The think I can get it bought for about $4000. Sound like a decent price?

The motors have 75 hours since 2001 (time current owner has had the boat) and are on the original top end as far as he knows. My question is....how long will these motors usually run before they need an overhaul. I have alot of experience with two-storke dirt bike motors, but not much with these marine motors?

Any advice/tips/etc... on a 1995 Sportster would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[kustomkarl]

Welcome to the seadoo forum Imsracing. I checked the Nada site for book price and this is what I found. I don't know what equipment is with the boat but with a trailer it has a book value of $2460.00. These boats will run for quite a while, without a lot of maintenance to keep them running. Here is the link to the Nada site:
http://www.nadaguides.com/default.a...&m=1456&d=1600153970&y=1995&ml=S&gc=mr&gtc=MR


Karl

 

[robin savell lloyd]

I can be wrong but I thought only the speedster came with 2 engines in 1995 and the sportster came with 1 engine. that may be why blue book value is much lower than the asking price. but even at that the boat should be in perfect shape for $4000.00 it should not have a single problem. :cheers:

 

[kustomkarl]

If it is a 2 engine 85 hp Speedster than the nada book says:$3440.00
Here's the link; http://www.nadaguides.com/default.a...&m=1456&d=1600153969&y=1995&ml=S&gc=mr&gtc=MR

Karl

 

[lmsracing]

I can be wrong but I thought only the speedster came with 2 engines in 1995 and the sportster came with 1 engine. that may be why blue book value is much lower than the asking price. but even at that the boat should be in perfect shape for $4000.00 it should not have a single problem. :cheers:

Sorry guys I meant speedster. It is the twin engine model.

 

[robin savell lloyd]

I am no expert I can only tell you what I have read. I have read that if you can get 400 hours out of one of these engines than you are doing good. I have also read that these engines are built close to the max performance. They are not tuned down they are built close to the edge of reliability. 85 hp coming from a 2 cylinder engine 650 cc or 720 cc does seem to be alot of hp per cc's. Hope you do not mind working on boats and engines as this one has age on it. Two engines to keep up with, 4 carbs, and you will probly have 2 times as many problems as a sigle engine. It does have its advantages also it should be able to pull skier as single engine would be diffacult. You should allways be able to make it back to shore if one of the engines give up. 2 engines at wot will burn close to 30 gallons of gas in 1hour 20 minutes. you need to check fuel lines if they are gray they need to be replaced. I would also keep an eye on spark plug color maybe evey 10 to 20 hours of runing as a lean condition may not be as noticable as a single cylinder off road bike or even a twin cylinder. Another advantage to a twin engine boat is that you should experiance less cavitaion problems than a single engine boat as pumps start to get some wear on them :cheers:

 

[scrump]

Wot

:agree: Robin is on the right track, I do disagree about the gas consumption though, as an owner of 99 speedster sk (twin 717cc's) I run wot quite a bit and find that a tank of gas can last me all day, my oil consumption does well also. I can get by with about 3-4 gallons per summer depending on how many times I go. I'm not sure about the actual mpg, just speaking from experience and opinion. I do agree that dual engines are more expensive because when replacing parts you sometimes have to purchase and fix both engines ( In some cases), but that is rare. My dealings with this boat is that of quality and speed, sure it's not a 2008 Speedster, but it is fast, agile and so far very reliable (other than general maintenance). If it handles anything like my 99' you'll have a blast. I can pull wakeboarders, skiers, kneeboarders, etc. and have no problem. One thing to remember though, is that as robin stated, you will need to change the grey fuel lines immediatly, they tend to fall apart on the inside and clog the fuel line or carb. (If you get lucky the previous owner already did it for you) I have also changed them out on mine so if you need any help let me know.


Good Luck,
Scrump :cheers:

 

[robin savell lloyd]

Gas consumption was read out of seadoo repair manual I question it my self. I may be off a little word for word but I believe I am close. I also do not know of anyone who has actually ran their boat at wot for 1 hour 20 minutes I would think most people have idle time and less than wot when out on the water :agree:

 

[scrump]

I don't know anyone that has done that either, guess I could try it out if I had $90+ to blow on an experiment. Wot for 1 hour 20 minutes might get painful after a while. I'm sure you are correct in what the manual states, but I will not be the one to test that.:rofl::rofl:

scrump

 

[kustomkarl]

The manual states it in the most critical condition. Meaning it would never get worse that that. Everyone has different riding habits, and that is the easiest to determine.

Karl

 

[tucker]

I am no expert I can only tell you what I have read. I have read that if you can get 400 hours out of one of these engines than you are doing good. I have also read that these engines are built close to the max performance. They are not tuned down they are built close to the edge of reliability. 85 hp coming from a 2 cylinder engine 650 cc or 720 cc does seem to be alot of hp per cc's. Hope you do not mind working on boats and engines as this one has age on it. Two engines to keep up with, 4 carbs, and you will probly have 2 times as many problems as a sigle engine. It does have its advantages also it should be able to pull skier as single engine would be diffacult. You should allways be able to make it back to shore if one of the engines give up. 2 engines at wot will burn close to 30 gallons of gas in 1hour 20 minutes. you need to check fuel lines if they are gray they need to be replaced. I would also keep an eye on spark plug color maybe evey 10 to 20 hours of runing as a lean condition may not be as noticable as a single cylinder off road bike or even a twin cylinder. Another advantage to a twin engine boat is that you should experiance less cavitaion problems than a single engine boat as pumps start to get some wear on them :cheers:

I personally dont think that 85 hp comming from a 720 cc 2 stroke engine is not all that close to max performance. I have been riding Bombardier snowmobiles for years and these engines are almost identical to them and a 600 cc ski doo engine puts out 120 hp and rev's at 8200 and 700 cc's put out around 140 hp and rev at 8200. So I think they are detunned a little and built a little for reliability. Depends on alot of factors how long they will last.
Just my thoughts..

 

[robin savell lloyd]

Right on Tucker that is why I allways try to say I can allways be wrong Thank you for bringing that to my atention. It does sound like what you are use to in a skidoo is like a ferrari and are seadoos are tuned down like a porshe. but I do think they are hi performance. please correct me if I am wrong. Robin

 

[tucker]

Right on Tucker that is why I allways try to say I can allways be wrong Thank you for bringing that to my atention. It does sound like what you are use to in a skidoo is like a ferrari and are seadoos are tuned down like a porshe. but I do think they are hi performance. please correct me if I am wrong. Robin

I would say any bombardier product you buy are the ferrari especially the watercraft they have dominated the market..... And think they are # 1 in snowmobiles as well...
I do think the 2 stroke seadoo boats and pwc do work very hard but if you do good maint and used good oil they can take it...
Maintanance is the key.