Why reinvent the wheel? Seatek have had a 950-1200hp diesel engine around since the mid 90s specifically built as a performance marine engine not a truck engine with boltons!
1900lbs in weight electric switchable turbos proven in class 1 for years in Skaters with Arnesons and speeds in excess of 140+.

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A guy I know is working on bmw a while now pretty close to get one in a boat even thought about put a pair in my 30 cat

http://www.diemax.nl/site/engines/v12-high-performance

I like it. Is the BMW diesel block common with gasser? If so then an old v12 could potentially be converted?

That's a good power to weight ratio

I spent a lot more then $100k on the first experiment and lost a year and a half of my life getting lied to by the first guy that was building me diesels for the boat. But at this point I have to keep trying to reach my goal with what I want the boat to do.


Any gas engine would not be effective for what we are doing. The diesels even being heavily modified will get twice the gas mileage as gas engines or turbines, and with some of the long runs we are going to do you would never be able to carry enough fuel to make it.

Gale Banks has done a lot of things, he has spent most of his life doing custom engine stuff, but he would be too conservative to be associated with this engine project for the high profile but risk that it might not work. And he is really busy on a few military contracts. We contacted him several times about this project right when we started it.


We got it to over 90 mph with the drives not being straight so it might have been able to hit 100. It did accelerate good from the torque. The one with the seateks from all the notes we could find at skater and a few of the companies that worked on it and test it was a top speed of 101 mph, we want a lot more speed then that out of it.

After we get these running and make sure they work we are going to move into building aluminum blocks and heads for it. To use a bigger displacement would lower our rpm so we are wanting to stick to this size.

We talked with seatek's people, the biggest they have had 1200 hp but weighs twice as much as what we are putting in and cannot turn the high rpm we need. They are also so long we would have to move the cockpit forward just to fit them in.
The seateks were originally a low hp engine that are already turned up as high as they can get them and they actually advised us not to use them for the endurance,/mileage/weight/ect that we needed


When we first started this project the engines we wanted were the Audi diesels they used in the lemans race car. They were 750 hp and only weight 500 lbs. we planned on using 4 of them and would have a little better hp and mileage then in the race car by not having to meet racing rules. They would have had the high rpm and would have been set up to run on 2 if we needed so there would be less chance of getting stranded. There is a warehouse overseas that has 20 of them sitting in it and they will not sell them. I tried for a long time to get one and never got to the right person. If anyone has a high enough contact at Audi racing I would still like to get two for my cigarette gladiator and use it to do v-bottom records.

I thought that they are the same but use different bearings but bmw designed it that everything can be used on the same block so they could make a gasser and a diesel whit the same block only different internals and components , pretty smart i think

I have a very good contact within Seatek and I know the engines very well having done a number of rebuilds and modifications to these over the years. The 1200hp I thnk you are referring to is the new V12 engine basically two of the six cylinder engines put together hence the reason its twice the weight but the length should be the same.
I managed to squeeze two 6.4V10Ds into my 43 Supercat with room to spare I would have thought the Skater would have a bigger engine bay.
The lowest HP option when they started production back in the late 80s was 660hp and that was from the old 9L motors over the years they have been refined and cubic capacity on the newer engines are 10.3L
They now start at 750hp up to 950hp out of the 10.3L and if you want to sacrifice some reliability you can go 1200+
I know many Class1 teams that were well in excess of 1200hp out of the 10.3L before they were outlawed because of there dominance in Class 1 when couple to multi-speed transmissions.
Great platform for a diesel four valves per cylinder OHV single or twin turbo option, and very robust bottom end pity they weren't suitable for your application.

Good luck with your new platform I am intrigued as to the route you are taking gas or diesel?
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Bit of a daft one here! I wanted to try two of these in a boat.
Transmash V12 Russian multipurpose tank / plane engine, a lot of the European tractor pullers use them.
Used to come out of Russia dirt cheap.
All aluminum 1800+ lbs 40L yes 40L twin turbo or supercharged diesel four valves per cylinder can make in excess 2000hp @ 2800rpm.

Certainly sounds a beast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dai-_EUe9f8

Oh yeah, now I want a pair of those.. Long as they come with that same guy who feeds half a can of ether into the SC on start up... lol

Seriously, there is no substitute for cubic inches. Right now achieving 2 HP per cubic inch reliably out of a marine diesel setup is totally doable. Even 4 or 5 HP per CI is reachable for short bursts. But there is so little data on that sweet spot in between. These 2000hp truck guys don' t care about long term reliability. Unless you count 10 sled pulls as long term. And any big marine engine manufacture is all about cubic inches for long term reliability, and low rpm pushing torque. So maybe a 3 or 4 speed transmission is the key better top speed.

As the OEM truck engine designs keep getting better, so won't the aftermarket power side. Guess who has all ready marinized and dyno tested a new L5P for marine use?? And isn't afraid to run one WTF open all day long on a dyno either. This is how you test a diesel marine engine..

http://banksinsider.news/2017/02/l5p...-banks-cell-1/

I've heard the hot new light truck diesels will derate under continuous heavy load. Any truth to that?