2003 225 ho problems

I bought a Stratos 200 pro xl 225 h0 in march of 2003.In Sept. of 2003 lower unit shucked out.Lower unit was replaced and no problems until about a month ago I was fishing a club tourny on a no-wake lake and by the end of the day my starter was growling a little bit.Got home and checked the starter and 2 mounting bolts were missing and the other was about to fall out .Packed her down to the dealer and had it checked out.Bolts replaced, the 2 missing were down in the pan.
Next tourny on 18000 acre lake fished all day ran back to the takeoff cove to finish the last hour out.Went to put her on the trailer and and had a loss of power.Took the boat back out after weighin and only could get 5 grand wot.Started pulling plugs and found the middle cylinder starboard side fouled.Switched plugs,started ok took off and lost the same cylinder again.
Got home called the dealer,said to bring it in later that week.Decided in the meantime to change out the fuel filter.Dropped the pans off and a long bolt falls to the floor.Looked around on the motor and found it to be the power head bolt that comes up from the bottom from the housing.Checked the others,one bolt the head was sheared off and the other four were only hand tight and about to fall out.Called the dealer again and said to bring it down.Got the broken bolt out with an easyout and retorqed the rest and checked the upper powerhead bolts,found them to be loose but not bad,Also found 2 more bolts missing.These were the bolts that are on alll 4 corners of the powerhead that bolt down to the housing,I think my mechanic said these are to help alighn everry thing up when putting on the powerhead.
Took it back down later in the week to address the dropped cylinder problem.More bolts missing!The 2 that hold the reed block for the middle starboard cylinder were plum gone causing the fouling issue.Talked to bomb about these issues and they said they never come across a motor with these issues.Bomb asked me if I had noticed any unusual vibrations that could be vibrating this motor apart, my answer was no.This is the second 225 ho that I have owned and would know right away if it had a vibration that would cause this.Parts are on there way,bomb is going to replace every bolt that we found loose or missing.
My question is has anybody come across this before?I was thinking maybe the first lower unit may have been the cause in that it was causing enough vibrations before it launched to loosen things up and took this long to show up.Any feed back would be appreciated.

Later,
Kelley Joe Clark

Kelly,
Bomb will make good on your motor for sure just keep a record for future reference, although your warranty claims should be on file/ accessible by any BRP dealer.
Sprintman the 96's had a problem with the bolts, and OMC came out with a fix for this issue. CM http://www.bassboatcentral.com/boardstuff2/pimp2.gif

Welcome to the BBC.

Kelley, what RPM's are you turning your motor?

The reason I ask, if you turn that motor over 5800 it may have some vibration issues.

Rusty,
I propped the motor to 6000 rpms according to all the info at the time.Bomb also was asking what I ran at.According to the computer I ran at 6000 .32% of the time with 130 hrs. on the motor.alot of the time was at idle-2500 with the remaining time at5000-5800.I usually open her up to 6000 once or twice if I'm on large bodies of water.It also showed that i did hit 6140 at one time which was when I was propping it in.
Should I be concerned about running it up to 6000?Everingthing that I read and info from setup guys said to prop it to 6000.
Thanks for all of your replies.
Later,
Kelley Joe Clark

Kelley,
I too have an 03 225HO and a month ago had a problem with the bolts coming out of the reed box. This occured during a tournament and made for a long run back to the ramp because the motor would not get over 4200 RPM. Shop told me that there was only about two treads that had loc-tight on it. One of the bolt had dropped into the cyclinder and scored the wall. Bomb replaced the powerhead because of it. When I went to pick my boat up at the shop they told me they had just gotten another one in whith possible the same problem. That is the only major problem I have had with this motor, other than a CPS getting destroyed during break-in. As I have been told try to keep your RPMs at or below 5800. Rusty has told me this along with my shop. I too thought that we could run these motors up to 6K with no problem, but as I have been informed, Bomb can decline repair if th eprofile shows more than 5% at 6K and above.

Do Not turn your motor over 5800 RPM's, if it has a problem it will be frowned on if the motor has been turned over 5800.

Rusty,is running @5800 rpms max something that has developed over the last few years after problems have arised or was I getting bogus info from the beginning on setup?
Later
Kelley Joe Cark

This was found in the field, this motor if turned over 5800 could have a vibration problem.