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21' Diesel Nordic in Feb. Powerboat mag

Old 02-06-2008, 02:00 PM
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Liquid Liability,

The exaggerated point I was trying to make was based on fuel economy alone.

I was being scarastic about diesel ecomony vs $'s saved. Yes, maintainence should be less money, it will last longer, how much? I say last longer with a qualifier, when you run your diesels hard and throttle them they don't last like steady state running in a cruiser would.

On fuel consumption alone, you can't put enough hours on a performance boat to ever make it worth it, that was what I was trying to say.

Another note, I think, not sure when most people on here re-build a gas engine it is because they are experiencing a problem and not rebuilding for scheduled overhauls like a race engine. If that is correct than expect the price of your diesel rebuilds to be very high which will hurt your assumptions.

You don't know me from anywhere, search my posts, I am the biggest fan of diesel power. I have patents, my shops did research work for the major engine & component manufacturers yada, yada, yada.

I want it to work, but even in say a 31 Bertram when you pull out the gas power and replace with diesels to give equal speeds it is very hard in the time you own it to make the investment worth while unless you run a charter operation with near dialy useage.

Baywatch - how many hours a year do you put on your boat running at 45-65 mph, not total but at those speeds?
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Old 02-06-2008, 02:23 PM
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Habana Joe,

Thanks for the clarification on your point. I was not trying to stir anything up and you can probably tell by my membership time and number of posts that I do not poke my nose into a lot stuff on here, especially like some of our northern brethren (i.e. MarylandMark, Masher44). The point I was trying to make was simply that if I had an option of spending an extra $10-$15 grand to get a marine conversion Duramax/outdrive set up that will give me 50% or more longevity between rebuilds and have the same performance it makes sense to me. The reduced fuel consumption would be the icing on the cake and not the reason for the exercise.

The big issue as I see it now with a marine version of the Duramax, Cummings or Powerchoke is trying to developing a transmission or gearbox that will increase the prop speed to those comparable to a gas motor, which would let the diesel operate at RPM levels that will allow it to be throttled and live for a long time. Anyone who has had one of these diesel motors knows they will not live for long at 5000+ RPM regardless of what you have done to the internals.

Hopefully someone will figure it all out and there will in turn be enough demand to make it a cost effective option.
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Old 02-06-2008, 02:51 PM
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I didn't think you were stirring the pot, no problem. If you go to the other diesel thread in general here you will see I posted 5 pages from 1990 about a project of ours.

We own the gear box, patents, prototypes etc. They are still sitting in our factory in IND. collecting dust, they never went into production so they are machines housings (very expensive), hand cut gears, etc
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Old 02-06-2008, 02:52 PM
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Originally Posted by HabanaJoe
Liquid Liability,

The exaggerated point I was trying to make was based on fuel economy alone.

I was being scarastic about diesel ecomony vs $'s saved. Yes, maintainence should be less money, it will last longer, how much? I say last longer with a qualifier, when you run your diesels hard and throttle them they don't last like steady state running in a cruiser would.

On fuel consumption alone, you can't put enough hours on a performance boat to ever make it worth it, that was what I was trying to say.

Another note, I think, not sure when most people on here re-build a gas engine it is because they are experiencing a problem and not rebuilding for scheduled overhauls like a race engine. If that is correct than expect the price of your diesel rebuilds to be very high which will hurt your assumptions.

You don't know me from anywhere, search my posts, I am the biggest fan of diesel power. I have patents, my shops did research work for the major engine & component manufacturers yada, yada, yada.

I want it to work, but even in say a 31 Bertram when you pull out the gas power and replace with diesels to give equal speeds it is very hard in the time you own it to make the investment worth while unless you run a charter operation with near dialy useage.

Baywatch - how many hours a year do you put on your boat running at 45-65 mph, not total but at those speeds?
I think I know where you are going with this. Last season I put right at 100hrs on the boat total so I would guesstimate that actuall hours running between those numbers was more like 55-60hrs. In my part of the world you spend a lot of time idling in and out of no wakes. On the fuel savings alone it would probably take me something like 100yrs of use to make it worth the expense.

I eventually want to create a performance vessel for doing journey's like the great loop and trips through the caribbean. It is many years out but I dream of having a diesel powered sport boat that I can actually travel on not just runs to lunch or the beach on the weekend. With my current set up my cruising range is 250miles @ best.

Thanks
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Old 02-06-2008, 05:10 PM
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baywatch - what kind of drives are on your boat? Also, about how much room in the front of your engines to the bulkhead?

You have no problem running the diesels in that Apache and getting 70 mph with a 50-55 mph cruise.

Let me see if we can play on paper with using your Apache.

Before, anyone says anything, I'm partial to the Cummins product for many reasons - some of them are:
- more Cummins dealers worldwide than any other engine,
- more marine dealers (diesel) than anyone else
- common engine that is used globally in trucks, buses, equipment & boats
- coupled with Mercruiser their reach is even now greater
- greatest amount of over the counter hot rod parts

No, I'm not a dealer and you all know I don't work for Cummins either - I base my opions on years of experience with diesels and the marine markets for little hi-po diesel engines.
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Old 02-06-2008, 06:01 PM
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Gotta ask this question.

Exactly how many miles, this is a truck engine after all, do people get on their GM truck with a Duramax before it needs a rebuild? Street driving, towing, personal use or commercial?

With this we can start to paint a picture of the life expectancy of this engine in a boat as it is not a stock Duramax when it goes into the boat and it is not seeing the same load conditions as it does in a truck.

It is not uncommon to get 250-300K miles on a gas engine in a truck now days with no major problems so I am curious as to what more we can expect from an automotive diesel.
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Old 02-06-2008, 06:36 PM
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RIK,

I understand where you going, this is my input.

Case in point, in my 2006 Ford diesel p/u (stock) I can cruise down the road at 70 mph and the boost gauge is reading maybe 12-14. I hit a good hill and maybe make 22 and still run 70 mph. When I trailer my boat which is 14-15,000lbs loaded at 70 mph the gauge reads over 20, hit a hill and try to keep going 70 and the gauge is pinned and I can't make 70.

The engine will go over 200,000 miles without taking the valve covers off and that is with 20,000 mile oil changes.

If you look at % of time where the engine is at 80% load is probaly less than 5% of overall engine hours.

Now put that same engine is an Navistar straight truck where it is working at 50% load for 50% of the time (this engine is also much less HP than a Ford) and you won't go 150,000 without some problems.

To go further with that, when you try to figure hours to miles a regional use truck is usally at 33 miles to 1 operating hour.

That means the Navisar truck engine went 4,500 hours at reduced HP and at only 50% hp for 50% of the time.

Now take take engine to 3 times the HP, turn it faster, have irregular cooling (if seawater cooled) and run at 80% load or greater at 80% of the time and you see why things BLOW UP!
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Old 02-07-2008, 08:14 AM
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Originally Posted by HabanaJoe
baywatch - what kind of drives are on your boat? Also, about how much room in the front of your engines to the bulkhead?

You have no problem running the diesels in that Apache and getting 70 mph with a 50-55 mph cruise.

Let me see if we can play on paper with using your Apache.

Before, anyone says anything, I'm partial to the Cummins product for many reasons - some of them are:
- more Cummins dealers worldwide than any other engine,
- more marine dealers (diesel) than anyone else
- common engine that is used globally in trucks, buses, equipment & boats
- coupled with Mercruiser their reach is even now greater
- greatest amount of over the counter hot rod parts

No, I'm not a dealer and you all know I don't work for Cummins either - I base my opions on years of experience with diesels and the marine markets for little hi-po diesel engines.
I have bravos for drives and without gettin in the boat I would guess that I have about 6-8" to the bulk head. I'll attach a pic but it doesn' really do a good job at showing the space in the front between the pully's and and the bulkhead. Boat weighs right about 10,000 with the bravos and very light fuel.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
Attached Thumbnails 21' Diesel Nordic in Feb. Powerboat mag-l_199536apache006.jpg  
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Old 02-07-2008, 08:58 AM
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I was hoping you had #3's, that would be easy and the engine bay might have been longer? I can tell from the picture it is tight.

When the weather warms up can you check if you have 55"-60" from where the bellhousing attaches to the drive to the front bulkhead?

Also, what are the drives centered on - 34"?
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Old 02-07-2008, 10:56 AM
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Originally Posted by HabanaJoe
I was hoping you had #3's, that would be easy and the engine bay might have been longer? I can tell from the picture it is tight.

When the weather warms up can you check if you have 55"-60" from where the bellhousing attaches to the drive to the front bulkhead?

Also, what are the drives centered on - 34"?
I'll have to look when it warms up. I should have 55" not sure about a full 60."
I was thinking mabye B-max drives as an alternative to the ASD's? I have seen a few sonics with b-max's hooked to yanmars, but not sure how trouble free they were.

I will take better pics and measure once it warms up.
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