Carver Owners Forum

Hello all. Ive brought several sailboats back to life. Now its time to try it with a motor boat. I wanted a boat the family of 3 could stay in with our three dogs for up to 2 weeks at a time in the keys. The family hates sailing so my sailboat is for sale and the project begins.

Plans: stock 350 has 760 hours, service, rebuild carb and see how she works out.

Gut interior, vinyl or laminate floors and all new upholstery

Complete rewire.

2 starter batteries, 2 house bank batteries and 100 watts of solar panels to run items like all led interior, cabin and spot lights.

Honda or similar quiet generator to run ac, water heater and battery charger if needed.

Find a place to mount an aux 30 gallon fuel tank

Build bench seat for fly bridge and some rod holders

Some custom life lines for flybridge and front deck.

200 ft 1/2 rode, 50 ft 3/8 chain and both a plow and danforth anchor for a good night's sleep

A swim platform with upper and lower ladders plus mount for 9.9 outboard.


Install alpa one outdrive

Simple sonar fish finder and budget gps chart plotter to keep me from ending up in cuba...or to help me find Cuba

And first up...diy aluminium window frames....ive got rot

Anyone got any suggestions for where to buy aluminum felt lined channel to lay the oem glass in? Id like 3 channel to add a screen

Welcome aboard!
Post pics often on you progress.
I brought one back from the dead as well - 10 years dead.
Good Luck!

Thank you. Already killed a shop vac cleaning her out. Im not sure she has a holding tank. It appears that fresh water tank under the v berth.
I have a 75 gallon fuel tank in the cockpit between cabin door and engine.

It appears the toilet goes right a sea cock. It also appears the sink and shower exit into the bilge

Anyone know where the holding tank is? Or is supposed to be?

So the 350 has a dead cylinder. Weak cylinder. Cylinder 1 only puts out 90 psi.

Needs a starter (got a left over car starter on temporary for diagnostics) carb rebuid and being from 1978 needs new exhaust im sure plus a rebuild. I could marinized a used car motor and new exhaust on the cheap but would still spend near 1500 on a 1 to 2 mpg motor. That's maybe 75 to 150 miles to a tank. Not good for cruising the inner coastal or the keys. Would also like a few dry tortoga trips.

So at this point it's go diesel or just part her out. Im picking up a passat diesel next weekend if weather is nice.

It's a 2005 passat 2.0 tdi diesel.

It's in stock form as of now.

It is electronically controlled including an electric throttle pedal. It's a smooth running diesel motor compared to your cummins or power stroke diesels.

It's the most robust of the 4 cyl vw diesels and from what ive read the base motor used in the wv marine industry.

In stock form shes dumbed down to 130 hp @3800 rpms and @240 ft lbs of torque from 1900 to 2400 rpms. Should be a good rpm range for getting on plane as well as cruising at hull speed.

Ill be getting rid of most of the stock emissions. Im keeping the ecu and electronic ip because its cheaper and smoother as well as better performing. Being more economical is also a plus.

There are a few issues ill have to address. Deleting the dumb ballancing shaft assembly. Upgrading to a better cam. Along with the tuned ecu, more efficient turbo for my marine Needs and larger injectors ill have closer to 200 hp and 300 ft lbs torque.

Ill be pushing the alpha to the max. Better to work out the bugs now and swap to a bravo later.

As for now im gutting the inside of the boat to redo the Windows, upholstery and flooring.

Before you go too far, check a little deeper as to the HP required to get that boat hull on plane if that is a need for you.....running at hull speed is one thing...planing hulls require more than you think to get over the hump.....good luck with your project......

I'd also be concerned with the heat off the turbo. Are you planning on building your own jacketed exhaust? It's going to get real toasty in that engine room.

If the 78 specs are close to the specs of the 80 santa cruze i need a minimum of 60 hp to plane around 16 mph

I'd put money on my 2.0 tdi making more torque and power on a dyno than any 1970s 350 in stock form. That 260 hp rating was probably closer to 225 and that was fresh off of the assembly line.

Those hp/plane specs came from carver, provided to me by hardchines which he found doing his countlese hours of research on his diesel conversion. He was nice enough to really go into detail with me on this

Another guy on the tdi forums has a 1.9 tdi with less hp that easily gets his 25 ft searay sunbridge on plane. The searay is also a modified deep v, also around 5000 lbs and less hp and torque.

Lets not forget that the over priced cummins "marine" which is just an isuzu 1.7 is a sub 200 hp diesel sterndrive that is sold in new boats of similar size as well.

As for exhaust i have a few ideas for heat.

A dei turbo blanket.
Water and oil cooled center of turbo
Ceramic coated turbo manifold.
Ceramic wool packed in the manifold where it fits
Lava heat tape over the wool.
Heat jacket over downpipe until the point water is injected.

The engine hatch will be raised a few inches. A full length stern bench will be installed on top.

On the port and starboard side 12volt fans intake fans will be installed to bring in cool air.

Inside the hatch two bilge fans will draw out hot air from the top.

Water cooled manifolds draw lots of heat out sacrificing power. Turbos need heat to spool.

If this doesn't provide enough ill line copper tubes around the manifold and then insulate the entire assembly.

Its going to be trial an error. The exhaust will be the hardest part.

It does seem like a lot of work. I plan on having her water ready by summer.

If not, we already have a 26 ft sailboat so it's not like we we will have to do without being on the water if it's not done by then. I have not owned a motor boat in maybe 7 years. I got rid of it because of fuel costs. The 350 and her sub 3 miles to the gallon is not a good range.


Im aiming to at least double that on plane and triple that at hull speed.

If we want to motor from marathon to key west, fill up and hit dry tortugas it wont be an issue. Providing good weather and seas. If im in murrles inlet and want food in Charleston, no problem! I want comfort and range. And a swim platform so i no longer have to lift dogs from the dingy. 100 lbs of wet dog sucks. Especially 3 of them.

Sounds as if you have things covered.

Something you may want to consider. Develop a way to completely block the air intake to the engine. Runaway's happen. Center bearing seal goes bad in the turbo, engine oil gets in the intake stream, and bam - it's running away from you. Only way to kill it is to completely block the airflow. Completely.

I've seen it. Pretty damn scary.