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?

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.

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.

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

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.