Why do boats break?
 

:boat:This is something we have been discussing all summer. Our area of Texas has had a long spell of heat and humidity. It seems like almost all of the boats that run regularly have broken this summer. From water pumps and electrical gremlins to full blown motors and drives. Why? I have run high performance bikes and cars most of my life, not racing, but owning and driving and they rarely break. Every time one of us takes out our boat, someone gets towed back in. We all do the proper preventative maintenance, oil changes, drive service, etc. So it's not like we don't take care of our boats. What is it about boat engines and drives that make them so easy to break. Is it the environment that they run in? Or the stress of plowing thru the water?All of us talk about having extra parts, engines, and drives around just in case. Why is it so difficult to build a reliable boat/engine/drive combination that is affordable. Is it money. Would a 496 mag ho with a #6 drive keep you out of the shop? Wouldn't be very fast but would be reliable. Just curious if anyone has some input into this. I have owned boats most of my adult life and never had the problems that we have all experienced lately. We all wait for the latest and greatest but they all seem to disappoint. Kind of thinking out loud.

I think it's all of the above, environment we run them in, pounding waves, etc. I had real bad luck when I first purchased my boat but now it's all dialed in. Maybe do 525's with #6's.

Boat = Environment, always under a load, most of the time the rpm's are high.

High performance Car's dont have that salt water to deal with, not as much load and you never hold your hot rod car at 4K rpm's cruising around unlike our boats.

Iam sure there is more to it but thats what I can think about.
Erik

That's a big one...we run our cars at 1800-2000 rpms on the highway with little stress on the engine. Boats run minimum 3500 with high loads.

B - Break
O - Out
A - Another
T - Ten Thousand

Or if you prefer

Bend
Over
And
Take it

Hope this helps.

We are planning another casino run in Sept. You guys in for another grueling run??

Oil and Water don't mix....... that's the basic problem, just on a larger scale.

i know this all too well lets see bought boat in march trouble in may and now its going to be august and should have it back just in time to go to destin for emarald coast run jeff when in sept are yall thinking of going

I am trying to set t up for the weekend of the 11th.

Who is this? We've met before havn't we?

I realize that boats use Chevy, Ford, Dodge (Ilmor) engines, but boats themselves are built by tiny companies in comparison to cars. What do you suppose the price and reliability of boats would be if Honda, Toyota, Ford, etc, built boats? I suppose maint and breakage would be decreased dramatically. Just imagine the engineering budget Toyota would have for drives. F1 cars run at constant super high RPM's with big hp and small cu's and they do not break nearly as often as the high hp race boats. Just my 2 rupes.

I feel ya too... bought the boat, broke a starter and smoked an impeller first time out. Broke a hose the next time out. Took out another 5 times with no parts breakage. Hurricane came... fast forward to this year. First time out, no issues except a little rain and having issues with one drive not going up and down consistently. Next trip out locked a motor up... So basically I have owned the boat for 13 months, and had 5 trips with no issues.... and three with parts breakage. Hoping to have the new motors done in the next week and in the boat so we can have a little boating this summer.

Gerrit... I agree. I have never seen such mass destruction in any form of motorsports before. Everything is stupid expensive and nothing lasts. But it sure is fun when it doesn't break. :evilb:

If it was cheap and easy everybody would do her , or it !!!! :drink::drink:

You saved me the typing, thanks.

Right on!

How is the excaliber these days?

Boats break for the same reason that tornados target trailer parks..........

Garry Alexander I bought the 388 slingshot from charles, also was on the 39 rocket doing 106 across conroe with you.

That, my friends, is it in a nut shell. The engineering in boats/drives/etc. is archaic by comparison.

I can't complain a bit!

I thought that might be you. What happened to your boat. It looked good when you were making the delivery runs. I saw it passing in front of the house.

What engines were in that thing.

Drive problems but all will be fixed this week and some other upgrades The boat has 565ci and from what i'm told coming in around 720 each. I did see 92 that first day out, but the motors timing was way too high. The props were also way too big so I've changed those also. I'm ready too see what she'll do now

I had a $47k Ford that had a perpetual oil leak and wouldn't start if it was 30 degrees outside. Now I have a $47k Dodge that left me on the side of the road on the Desert in the summer. Dodge roadside service called back after three hours and said they couldn't send anyone ...I needed to call 911. 2 hours later got a tow. They were called by Dodge but since Dodge owes them more than 30k they wont go on a Dodge Call. 500 dollars on my dime. I also have a 2 year old Grand Cherokee that the airconditioning keeps going out and the dash electrical keeps going out. Yea..These yahoos would build awesome boats:rolleyes:

You're paying too much. My $17k Ford 1-ton V10 van has performed flawlessly. :coolcowboy:

And if american cars had that kind of quality...they'd be bankrupt..oh wait..never mind

+2
My 18K 1999 F350 dually never lets me down...knock on wood :lolhit:

Trust me...I agree.

By the way, 525's and sixes will run forever.

read this thread:

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...-building.html

Call me when you go out.

Rigging is one reason. Engine machine work and proper dimensions for sustained marine use is another.

Stern drives. (unless #6's and 800 or less hp). Stern drives are maintance hogs and delicate. You don't see stern drives on too many commerical applications....

RPMS (ruins peoples motors). Sustained high rpms use. Pushrod valve trains don't like this.

Open cooling. Unless proper strained, crap(including salt) goes in your engine (see proper rigging).

Electrics. Electrics and water don't mix well. EFI has some merits, but I don't like sensors in the marine environment. Saving gas is useless if it breaks. Give me carbs and a mechanical fuel pump. Having an engine that vapor locks from the factory is a joke. Often marine engine builders have to select from the OEM efi parts bin, which often means emission controlled, and not intended for marine environment. Who has o2 sensors in their exhausts? May as well use a carb.

Government Regulations/Emissions. Anything mandated by these fools will decrease performace, increase cost, and break more often.

Variables. Shorting drives, stand off boxes, props. You start playing with these and water pressure and rpm changes. Now you are in the R&D business. Drive dimensions are not standard (relative to the hull) so the builder or the owner of the boat has to optimize his own.

Because you just can't get out and walk away.

Q- Uncle Dave,,why do you have 2 boats?
A-Because with 2 boats I have a 50/50 chance of actually going boating!

A lot of it is environmental- mixing water with anything is a game changer.

A lot of it is the stress factor on boats and engines, and the fact they aren't used in regular duty cycles and tend to sit- then be abused.

A lot of it is guys not knowing what they are doing and trying to build things to go fast.

sooo.....Would we be a lot better off with more and different players- I dont think so. I think we'd have the same problems and need to get parts from different places.

Honda does build a "boat"- its a small one called the aquatrax and I see them broken all the time. Well its a jestki thing.

Yamaha builds full size boats- towed one to the ramp a month ago- it was sinking for some reason.

Sea doo/bombardier builds wakeboard boats - see them broken all the time.

Most autos dont have 300HP much less the 5,6,7,8 ,9 & 1000+ we have in boats.

Even if toyota built a boat it would need an impeller - will that go out in a year of neglect, or misuse, or dry start by your teenager in the garage - you bet.

It is what it is my friend.


UD

Toyota did a marine engine for a couple years. It was in ski boats I think. It sucked, over complicated and broke a lot.

And if you had a $500mm/year budget nothing would ever break....that's about what the top F1 teams spend.

Most boats are pretty reliable....high performance boats, just by the sheer nature of what they do (go fast) is a recipe for broken parts. Especially when they are run in big water. The physics of pushing something that big and heavy, at 80+ mph through the water is enormous and requires constant attention to the mechanicals and frequent service intervals. Kind of like how top fuel dragsters basically rebuild the motor after every 1/4 mie pass.
You gotta pay to play.

"You gotta pay to play" - a mechanic once said that to me after I was shocked at how much it took to replace something simple.

Anyways, think about it this way, if you were in the water most your life, I'm sure you would break much faster than being on dry-land all the time.


Totally unrelated but watch the movie waterworld to get a grasp of global warming to the max and being on a boat ALL day.

Take any of them cars, run up about 4000 rpm and drive it over three foot speed bumps and see how long it lasts.

Just tryed it, stuff broke... alot of stuff :lolhit:

F1 engines make almost NO torque. High hp for their size but they don't need torque. Boats run on torque.

Torque and shock loading kills stern drives. Put an F1 car tranny in a boat and be lucky to get on plane first try but I doubt it.

There are drives that don't break (Arneson, Twin Disc, etc). A boat is one GIANT compromise. It operates in an abusive environment right out of the gate. However...

There is nothing I hate or love more.

OK, so I just ordered 2 GM marine 502 longblocks (factory) from Derebery performance. They are new,factory GM built units. Do I need to do a teardown and tech inspection (verify proper clearances) Although these are supposedly marine standard engines, they dont have inconel ex valves. I thought that was one of the standards on marine engines. Any advice?

They did, the boat were called Epic and they were inboard tournament ski boats. The boats were actually very nice and at the time were competing with industry leaders like MasterCraft, Nautiques, and Malibu. One downfall was that no one was real keen on the Lexus overhead cam V8. The demise of the line was the fact that Toyota is a very smart company, and they soon realized that selling niche boats in the high-end ski boat market wasn't the most prudent business decision.

The Epic name has been ressurected under a new company out of CA.

Anyhting that goes fast and gets beat breaks, nature of the beast...

Isn't he from Kenya, too?:lolhit: