Mercruiser Engine, SmartCraft, MercMonitor, Garmin?

[wildk]

Hi, I have a 97 Eastern 27 Lobster and last year I re-powered with a low hour 2004 Mercruiser 383 Scorpion. As the boat is 20+ years old, a decent number of the gauges have stopped working, and I am trying to come up with a solution. As I understand, this engine is capable of outputting data, which I can read on a digital display of some kind. Ideally, I would like the engine data to show up on my Garmin chartplotter. (It's a GPSMAP 7610xsv new last year, I know it is capable of displaying engine data)

What I am not sure about is how to get the data from the motor to the garmin. I have searched, and I believe I need either a MercMonitor or a Smartcraft something or other that will convert the engine data to NMEA2000, which can be read by my chartplotter. I haven't been able to find what part numbers I need, or any certain testimonials of anyone who has gotten this to work.

Has anyone got this working on their own boat? What parts did you use, and where are they available for purchase? How much of a pain was it to get working?

 

[Scott Danforth]

why not spend 5 minutes and troubleshoot why your gauges are not working.

most likely its a bad ground or something as equally simple.

 

[wildk]

why not spend 5 minutes and troubleshoot why your gauges are not working.

most likely its a bad ground or something as equally simple.

Already done that. The grounding is fine. The tach bounces all over the place (and did this with the boat's original motor and the repower) The speedometer is totally dead (previous owner removed the sender from the back of the boat because they had a GPS unit), trim guage is dead as well, I have verified ground as well as the signal coming from the trim sender. GPH meter is digital and doesn't turn on, power and ground connected and verified.

The only things that work are fuel, oil pressure, and engine temp. Rather than replace all the gauges (only replacing some would give me a mismatched set) I would rather just go with a modern display, as I continue to modernize/refurbish everything else on the boat. I would like to start by displaying them on the garmin, but eventually would get a secondary display dedicated for the engine info.

 

[Scott Danforth]

the speedometer and the tilt gauge would not come thru smartcraft, so you would still need to fix those. the speedo is most likely a pitot tube model and needs a new pickup or to be attached to the pitot tube connection on the drive. the tilt gauge is most likely the sender on the drive

A jumping tach is usually a bad ground or a bad signal connection. check the pin at the cannon plug

the fuel meter is separate, and if inoperable, you may want to remove the sender if you go with smartcraft (if your ECM is equipped with smartcraft)

either way, you need a NMEA gateway.

from there you can read the tach, engine temp and oil pressure and get your fuel burn. however your speedo and trim gauges (the ones not working) are still going to need to be attended to.

if you want to read the fuel level with your Garmin, you need to get a Garmin fuel flow kit and remove the other fuel flow sender

 

[wildk]

So the chartplotter already has speed (GPS) so I wasn't really intending on installing a pilot tube. The transom hole has already been filled. Trim - I know garmin has an adapter for an analog trim sensor, I think this is the correct model:
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/35607

As for the gateway, Something like this? It has the mercury connector on one end and NMEA connector(s) on the other.
https://www.greatlakesskipper.com/mercury-boat-oem-y-style-harness-84-879171t30-sea-ray-1937117

There are more expensive things like this, but is it just doing the same thing as the above part?
https://www.ebay.com/i/232894937115?chn=ps

In addition, I know i will need more NMEA tees to plug into the existing network.

 

[wildk]

Went to the mercruiser dealer this morning, and was asking about the mercmonitor, and they had no idea what I was talking about - the only thing they had was a bluetooth adapter that would allow me to see my engine data on my phone - not what I was looking for. They told me to find a part number so they could order it, but I have no idea what part that would be