Mercury Releases In-House Designed and Built 300- and 350-hp Stern Drives
 

The MerCruiser 350 Mag engine replacement has arrived., http://speedonthewater.com/new-boats...p-stern-drives

I'm not quite sure what we are getting as consumers with this besides a new platform that simply knocks off the old one. I would have thought they would have gone with a smaller version of the new big engines to make them smaller and more efficient but instead we are getting an unproven 'new' version of the same old stuff? No direct injection. No VVT. This just smells like Merc wasn't making enough off of parts.

The volvo's that came out a couple years back appear to be years ahead of this.

"The 6.2L features a maintenance center near the top-front section of the engine, ensuring that consumer “touch-points”— including oil filter and fill— are easily identifiable and accessible"

Wow, a sticker with information on it.

Technology is nice, but at what cost ?

The 'venerable' Chevrolet 4.3/5.0/5.7 put many boats in many hands because of making them more affordable from a purchase and repair standpoint.

Wonder if GM made a timeline on when these motors would no longer be available, or Mercruiser is trying to 'do it all.' ?

Mercury certainly helped kill the 496... they are in it to make money. This keeps more money in house.

Ilmor, Volvo, Indmar, etc. all feel using automotive engines as base platforms is still viable in today's market. Merc must know something they don't.

GM Powertrain has a series of marine engines that have the VVT etc.

Wannabe

So Merc designed 4 cam heads for LS engines but had a proprietary block and heads in the works??? I call BS if you look at injector placement and Exhaust manifold bolts they are in standard SBC positions. If you are going to design an engine from the ground up why would you siamese the intake ports and center exhaust ports like an SBC? Merc probably designed a new manifold for vortec heads put 3.75" crank covered it in plastic and called it new. Its not hard to build any GM V8 with out using a single part from GM. (You would have to work backwards to get a 6.2l LS engine down to 300hp)

I agree. And thank you, that made me look into their specs further and it looks like this (what you mentioned) is exactly what it is.

Hard to get GM to make 377's (cid displacement) in big #'s, therefore they are building the engine's themselves. Their own intake - which they do on many EFI engines - and etc.

Kind of hard to 'dumb down' a 377cid small block to 300HP also, but a camshaft (or intake/tbody/or simply programming to a fly by wire throttle body) can do this.

So......on to other news........lol.