Twin Turbo's
 

I have seen that during the early 80s there were boats around with twin turbos. From what I understand, the majority of them were done by Gale Banks. My question is, why aren't they used at all anymore? I would love to do it when my motor gets tired but I never see any of them so it has me kind of curious.

I remember reading an article called "power brokers" in an old powerboat mag. One of the big builders, cannot remember who, said that turbos will make a comeback. He said that they were not so great back then, but modern computers have made it possible to make them just as reliable as any blower motor.

Tommy @ Chief , he has just built a pair of twin Turbo engines and from what i heard they are freakn awsome.:drink:

Tommy has a few boats out there with them in the bilge, a friend of mine has a pair in a new 43 nortech, awesome package

Back during the turbos popularity, big CID was just a dream. No block existed beyond the GM 427 truck block. The turbos on a 496 could make some power. The big challenge was meeting Coast Guard regs on water jacketed exhaust. The shields were unreliable and water cooled turbo housings totally defeat the purpose- you need all the heat you're drawing out with cooling water. Mercruiser did some neat things with turbos and even had a set of race motors that made mean power but the APBA woudn't let them run them. Today, a Roots blower is just so much simpler to set up and run, plus they have big bottom end that the turbos never did- some of those turbo boats were impossible to get on plane. Toss in the Lysholm blowers and the various other offerings and turbos are even less attractive. For max horsepower, the turbo is hard to beat. There's no reason they can't be used on boats- the technology is decades old. Some of the new tech even offsets some of those old liabilities- but you still have a much simpler setup with positive-displacement systems.

As was said, Tommy @ Chief. When I was in FLA in 07', My girlfriend and I stopped by Chief to check them out, they gave us a really nice walk around. We were invited up to look inside Broken Arrow, a 47 Apache, which if I remember, had fresh triple twin turbos. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what a bad @ss boat! My girlfriend even thought Broken Arrow was insane, and she could care less about that stuff.

I have heard that turbo motors can go much longer between rebuilds . It's funny to me seeing every one of these exotic poweboats running the same Mercury 1075's when they have to be rebuilt every 25 or 50 hours. Regardless, it's 20 or 25k a pop for a rebuild.

Turbos are easier on crank, rods, pistons, etc. I have wondered the same thing myself.... why not more of them around, especially on race boats. I have a small block chevy with one 106mm turbo in my drag car and it makes over 2200hp with almost no maintenance at all. Now like Chris was saying, it is a more complicated and expensive (upfront anyway) to install and tune.... but once you get it close, it would make rediculous power and be reliable.

The biggest problem would be breaking drives once the boost started coming on hard.

Brummett Marine
310 N. Altadena Dr.
Pasadena, CA 91107
Tel: (626) 792-6410
Fax: (626) 792-6410

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YES!! That is exactly what I was thinking. SWEET!!!

How???????????????????????
 

The rebuild on a Mercury Racing 1075SCI is 100 hours and more than that if you have a bunch of idle time or low RPM use................... and the cost is just under $25,000.00 to rebuild if there is nothing else wrong with it.

Well, I am convinced. I am going to do it. I'll probably do it next winter because I have to finish my Chevy first or the wife will kill me if I start another project. There will be plenty of room to do it in my boat because I only have one motor.

There are a number of guys on performance boats that have a bunch of turbo experiance in boats. Look in the forced induction section.


Darrell.

Hey I boat sometimes in Kemah, would like to checkout that drag car sometime maybe, I also have some friends that run 1/4 mile at houston raceway park maybe see ya there one day.
Mark

I used turbo motors in my boats for years. All mine then were carburated, but now I think all the builders use EFI. Major drawback is cost. Exhaust manifolds run a lot more, inner coolers, oil coolers, etc. One major advantage besides gobs of horsepower is they act a lot like mufflers, are far more acceptable where there may be noise problems.
Gale Banks was a pioneer in the marine industry back then, along with Bill Dunsmore (Race Aero) which became Gentry then Brummett. By coincedence I saw Carson Brummett at Long Beach practicing for the Catalina Ski Race this morning (7/13/8). Todays turbo systems are a beautiful sight to see, and something else to hear...

Tom Gentry was big into it for a while. We have a pair of his 509 Twin Turbo motors in his old Hacker. Run great but not much low end torque.They would have trouble getting a raceboat on plane.

Thanks for the correction.

I have always heard that the issue with turbos in boats is the heat generated in the exhaust system that is not very safe in an enclosed boat hatch. Specially for headers in big blocks.

This said our Azimut has Turbo diesels and that runs fine.

I have seen and owned my share of cars with turbos that after a good run have red glowing exhaust and turbo housing, not something I would want under a fiberglass hatch of a boat. Then again I am positive there are solutions for that. Blowers do not have lag either as oppose to Turbos.

Thats what should make them well suited to the type of boats many OSO'ers run. These are not drag boats, and really need their power up top to spin big props. I would think the low end torque of big cube turbo motor would be more than sufficient to get the boat started, at least untill you begin to spool up at bit. Easier on drives too.

Thats exactly what I was thinking.