Originally Posted by saleen385

That's what I'm talking about, there are a lot of builders. We have a 40 person shop 4 dynos 5 CNC machines a chassis dyno and a full engine shop. It takes a lot of money to keep the doors open. Not sure we could do enough to sustain the shop.

Thanks,
Jim

Originally Posted by Bromaguire

The future should be in GM LSX motors. I have an engine in my Denali making over 750hp at 9psi on a custom built 434 cui LSX block with a Kenne Bell 3.6 Supercharger for less than $25k built by a Nascar engine builder that has provided Dale Earnhart Jr. motors for some of his championship years. Why do marine motors need to cost so much more?

Originally Posted by professor_speed

Alot of the Marine vs car engine stuff is just comical. Will a marine engine be built a little better than car engine? Maybe but maybe not.

Look at the parts that they are built with most are off shelf parts. Besides some of the uber builds its the same stuff guys are building race car engines with, nothing special, most of the stuff is not marine specific.

A good roundy round builder can build a solid boat engine.

Do you think that car guys can't build an engine with the same crank,rods pistons heads, etc? is a marine engine builder more talented than a guy that builds for Nascar? maybe but maybe not.

Look at most marine engines, Yes they are under load but they spin them Sloooow, most spin them what? 5000 rpm? 6500 maybe rpm for the HI-perf stuff, in the car world that engine would be turning 7500+ wear becomes exponential with engine speed. So slow the engine down and it becomes more reliable, magic

LS1's Were tested into the thousands of of hours at WOT, under load, before release. The standard most basic GM test is 300 hours of back and forth from peak hp to peak torque under load.

Of course there are considerations that must be accounted for when building a marine engine (cam valvetrain stability, oiling, operating temp etc) but they are not some magical unicorn engine. If they were every auto racing team would just have a marine builder build their Engines.

Marine guys (with the help of Mercury) are starting to figure out what Auto racers did a few years ago, Turbo's are the future.

I would say a good nitch would be Turbo LS engines. Turbos love a Load, The LS combustion chamber is great with boost, The bottom end is stout. Use manifolds, that cuts the cost of headers, not as pretty but cheap and reliable, offer it for decent price.

Build a 400ish cube turbo ls with a small marine friendly cam, smallish turbos it will make torque like blown bbc, forged rotating assembly etc, stock ls3 heads, you would have a hard time keeping it under 800hp.

Originally Posted by Bromaguire

Ok, I wasn't running 1000hp on my completely stock motor but closer to 650-700hp and there were zero problems. I'd agree if you plan on going for anywhere near 1000hp an LSX block is a better choice, although there are people pushing the non-LSX block that far.

This quad turbo motor built by my engine builder was making over 1600hp at 6psi and had no head lift problems with the LSX block.

Originally Posted by Bromaguire

Ok, I wasn't running 1000hp on my completely stock motor but closer to 650-700hp and there were zero problems. I'd agree if you plan on going for anywhere near 1000hp an LSX block is a better choice, although there are people pushing the non-LSX block that far.

This quad turbo motor built by my engine builder was making over 1600hp at 6psi and had no head lift problems with the LSX block.