I have a 1985 Sea Ray with a Mercruiser 3.0L 140 which was recently out of the water for a new starter and tune-up. I have an Alpha Gen 1 outdrive which has been very reliable. Unfortunately, I think I may have been torturing it since I am now finding out that running the boat out of the water with the "muffs" on the outdrive is not reccommmended for too long or to exceed 1000 rpm's. Is this true? If it is true, I have been running my boat daily for a month at varying rpm's to make sure everything was ok before I dropped it in the water. I did notice recently that between 2000-3000 rpm's the drive make a rattle but is smooth before and after those rpm's. I also noticed when I put it in the water yesterday that the acceleration was sluggish, almost like something was holding the boat back. It did eventually plane but seemed like it was struggling to stay up. I usually had a top speed of 33mph GPS and I topped out yesterday at 24mph GPS, although it was in very choppy water. I think I did some damage without realizing it. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
