450 hp Caterpillar C-7

How many hours on this engine? How do you know it has been maintained properly previously?

From a Caterpillar site.

1 change the Heui pump to the new model.

2 clean the oil gallery in the head.

3 change the injector sleeves.

4 install new injectors.

5 update ecm software with new HEUI strategy.

Yes its going to cost money, but after this and done properly it will hopefully give you many trouble free hours.

Did the boat sink in 2012? That's just the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the engines were replace on a relatively young boat like that. Were these new engines? If so, any major issues should have been handled by now under warranty. If not, then what was their history? I know you probably don't have the answers and the only way then to really know will be a good survey. I am always very suspicious of secrecy by seller or broker and would want to see the maintenance logs.

WHAT known problems on what other CAT engines exactly? Aside from aftercoolers which are recommended to be changed every 6 years by CAT (that a lot of owners don't change) what other issues on other CATS from 2000 or newer are we talking about?

Call Pantropic with the serial numbers and see if the engines have seen all of the updates. Actually, you'd probably have to go there. They would be able to answer that regardless of what dealer did the work. They should be fine with all of the updates. But Pantropic will give you an honest answer about them. I've run some of the newer C7's and they run good and haven't had any issues with them?

C-7 motors as well as the C-9's are plagued with HEUI pump failures. Even with Cat's updates the pumps continue to fail after 1000 hours or more. Cat thought it was a good idea to use high pressure lube oil to hydraulically fire the injectors. Unfortunately, If good housekeeping duties were overlooked and the lube oil became dirtier than 200 hrs. or so than the bearings in the HEUI pump would fail and shed metal particles down the line to the injectors. There were a few other scenarios bestowed on these motors that allowed dirty lube getting to the pumps other than infrequent oil changes. Things like oil cooler gaskets failing and filter by pass valves failing. A fair amount of coin between the HEUI system and injectors. Cat has known about the problems since the late 90's and issued multiple updates and fixes but when that didn't stem the tide, Cat basically turned their attention to other things. Owners were on their own. My personal opinion and experience is that Pantropic doesn't know the definition of an honest answer to anything. Horrible experience through the yrs. Much prefer Ring Power for the honesty issue. Just my 2 cents.

Pantropic did screw up one of my C32 customers. The owner did involve Cat Power up here as soon as the boat came to Jax. At his much further expense all was resolved and the warranties are intact.
Sadly, not any good comments up here to say about them these last few years. Shame, I used to endorse them.
Sadly Cat (Jax/StAug Ring Power) has proved to be foot draggers when the only heavy is on vacation.

Usually they're honest about advice (pantropic). However, I have had MANY scheduling issues with them and are currently having issues with them where the yacht seller pre-paid them in full to change all of the coolant hoses on a set of 3412's ohhhh almost 4 weeks ago.....

Ringpower is honest, but then again I had an owner fly me up to Jax to fix a cat boat that ringpower sent 3 techs out on and couldn't resolve why the motors wouldn't fire and they couldn't figure out it was the seafire relay box.

They all have problems then. It seems like the Cat dealers are a bit more hanky than Fl.DDA is. I have problems with any company that charges $130 per hour for labor but pays the field service tech $25.00 per hour and then explains this disparity away through insurance and overhead costs.

And charges you $3 a mile and the $130 an hour in DRIVE TIME. My biggest disparity with FDDA, is I had a set of new series 60 800HP's that needed their first service (200hr). I gave them the serial numbers, everything. The tech drives out 35 minutes to the boat with NOTHING but a notepad and pen. He brought NOTHING, he drives back to FDDA for parts 35 minutes, and 35 minutes then back after lunch to start the job........Several hours and miles of drive time, when they KNEW what parts the motors took without even coming to the boat, or at least enough of them to start the oil change and do most of it and could come back the next day with any other parts.

I agree stay away from Pantropic...

Down here in south florida, yacht your best bet is Southshre diesel (at Norseman on the river). Marcello knows his cats used him for years, except once when i made the mistake of using pantroics...

For a while, there was only one good tech up here. The rest were helpers with-out a clue but under his direction.
While this guy was on vacation or road trips, the shop could not fix a thing related to boats.

I will ad, this last year; FLDDA and RingPower have been steeping up to the plates and doing well.

Sorry Judy for wrecking your thread. I hope you got your answer.

N+G engineering in Fort Lauderdale is very good also.

One of the problems working with independent Cat shops, they dont have the latest laptop software and can not plug into the later engines.

I m pretty sure southshore does. He surveyed the 2009 lazzara i run and had no issue reading the C32s

Reading or updating/adjusting/diags?

N+G engineering can. They are former Pantropic employees (Nick and Gabriel) and have the latest CAT laptop and software. Most independants simply don't want to pay for the software or are not CAT certified so CAT won't sell it to them. I also know Joe Stafford (an independent engine surveyor) has all of the latest software and can read all of the cats even a 2015 I ran with C32's.

Reading is different from loading and other functions. But if all are happy, then all are happy.