Howdy folks, for those who’ve followed the page a while, you know that these boats have two small automotive relays in the fuse box for each engine. These relays are important in the functionality of the engines, but also can degrade over time, so they are a good place to start troubleshooting if you’re having certain engine-related issues, like no-start, RPM’s and performance dropping, missing, etc.
Anyway, I have a post in the announcements about this for more details, but I’ve been searching for some longer-lasting, hopefully less-expensive relays to keep as spares or use if needed, not only in my boat, but my Seadoo PWC as well, it uses the same relay, and I’ve got a strange miss I’m trying to track down…So, after doing more research on the relays, I discovered that although the relays Vortex and Seadoo use are OMRON brand SPDT Micro 280-type relays, the “normally closed” pole of the relay isn’t even used, that pin (center) has no connector in the fuse box.
Knowing this, I found a single pole (SPST) relay, made by Song Chuan, a major relay manufacturer, for $4 each on Amazon ($11.99 for a 3-pack.)They are rated at 35-amps, and have very high reviews, and here’s what I like – the coil is rated down to 6-volts, so hopefully these will survive better in the boating environment, where voltages can drop during storage, and marine use, which is what degrades the relays. (The OEM OMRON coil is rated at 10-16v).
I’ll give them a try before sending the link and making any recommendations, but just throwing it out there. If these work out well, it’s a no brainer to keep a handful of spares at all times, and maybe even make these part of annual maintenance, just change out all the relays every year. (Well it may be a no-brainer anyway, but at $4 a relay, that sure makes it easy on the wallet.)
Hope all are having a good week, we’re preparing for another Hurricane in the gulf, ugh!
