I think I can answer a lot on this model. These are High Performance(3920rpm.max. rating) with 520 ft.lbs. of torque and 320hp. Ours were made by VM Motori for Cummins, and should have a 5000hr. life-span if maintained correctly. This is a recreational engine(less than 350hrs. a year) and is not made for commercial use. Our application is a 38' Fountain with BravoIIIR outdrives. You can actually increase the power to 385hp. with a performance module fitted to the ECM, but I would not recommend it because of the stress it puts on the outdrives. Now the bad part!! We had one engine fail due to salt water intrusion, and not sure where it started. Had less than 1300hrs on engine. Boat has been lift kept allways, so no water in the engine compartment. New long block, intercooler, exhaust manifold, turbo ect. is $27,000 plus labor so their not cheap to replace. Just remember these higher RPM engines have a lot of stress on them, therefore higher possibility of failure than the bigger lower RPM engines. The only reason to have them rather than the QSB6.7 is when you are limited by space and weight.

I have these engines on my 2008 38 Fountain Sportfish Cruiser. After the Mercruiser/Cummins joint venture was dissolved, Mercury Diesel fortunately picked up these engines which are Tier II diesel engines. They are no longer being sold in the US as of about a year ago, because Tier III certified engines are what's required. However, Mercury Diesel is still servicing the engines.

This summer, I developed a leak in my port engine head gasket. The top half of the engine had to be rebuilt and the engine had to be removed. That was expensive -- about $12k. Then, as soon as that was completed, my port Bravo III outdrive disintegrated -- the cone clutch blew apart and trashed the rest of the outdrive. The Bravo IIIs can't handle the torque from these engines. I've had to replace upper and lower units several times. This is very expensive