There is an old saw about choosing whether to "raise the bridge or lower the river" and after our new engine was installed we had to deal with this kind of decision.
To wit: the distance from the top of the exhaust elbow on the engine needs to be XX inches above the top of the water lift muffler body in order to avoid possible back flow.
Our former Universal diesel had a higher cast "neck" than the new Beta. The Beta has an optional higher one, but it would have required some serious cabinet mods on our model boat.
So Tom (installer and ship wright) took my new muffler and cut the square base outer piece off of the canister, moved it up about 2/3 of the way and re-glassed it to the outside of the canister. (These mufflers are made of FRP.)
When you look straight down inside the port side lazaret now at first it resembles the appearance of the old muffler, but then you notice that the top of the mounting plate is
really close to the entry hose.
That is because the shelf the old one sat on now has a round hole cut in it and most of the "body" of the muffler sits below it. The circular hole is covered by the new raised Vernalift base.
**New: added a photo of the old water lift muffler, sitting on top of the plywood shelf. This shows the factory muffler (flat) base screwed down, as originally designed.
Note B: we had to buy a new muffler anyway because the new engine uses a larger ID exhaust hose than the previous Universal diesel.
And yes, I had to crawl back into the stern and install a new ss transom fitting. Working back there is always.... challenging.
I will also attach a web-borrowed picture of a stock Vernalift muffler for comparison. Like our previous one, note that the flat base is mean't to screw down to a flat surface.
So if you are changing engines in your Ericson or your Olson, you may have to solve a problem like this, and hopefully will find a solution, depending on how Ericson glassed in a flat plywood shelf for the original muffler to rest on.
Note C: the canister drain screw is accessible from underneath, facing aft, just in front of our aft water tank.
