diesel power
 

Last weekend we put a friends 42 el diablo on the water for the first time.

It is equipped with twin sea tek 750hp diesel and trimmax surfase drives.

Here is som pic of it.

Engines.

They smoke a bit when they are cold.

Is it a fire ???

Off we go

Here at 85mph.

rooster tail......

From the side.

Cool pictures! What does the boat weigh? How much do the engines weigh?

Very cool. Thanks for sharing!


Way impressive rooster tail! :D

Very cool indeed. More pics, more information!

Dang those things are smokey!!!!!! Sweet boat!

The motors weigh about 1800 lbs.
That is an older type the new ones do not smoke as bad. Direct injection will cure that.
Run the exaust under water, it helps.
Just think a little more boost, more fuel = 1200 hp. hmmmmm. What smoke.
pat W

oh I forgot that 750 hp is 1600 lb/ft and at 1200 it is around 2100 lb/ft;)
pat W

Yes That is correct the engines are as shifter says, they are coupled to crashbox es with overgear 1,22. 1

and the drives are trimmax, one bad thing about the trimax drives is that they are not so easy to trim up and down, due to the short axleshaft. On this boat.

so we are going to take the boat up tomorrow and lower the engines so we can trim the drives more up.
for more bow lift. as you see on the pic it goes kind of flat, an due to that we lose speed.

The engines and drives was bougth by fabio buzzi him self, and he said we where insane if we put both engines in this boat.

But he said if we got the boat and engines tuned in, it we go aprox 105mph, so we was kind of disapointed with the speed.

here you can se that the we have no bow lift.....

That looks sweet. I hope you do get more speed out of it. I would like to do a similar diesel project (on a much smaller scale though.) Keep us updated.

Any chance we could get video or a sound clip!

Groove, What make of power were you thinking of for your diesel project?

shifter,
I think you'll find all the seatek's are 'direct injection' and 4 valve, I dunno what model they have there, but the earlier 7.8 litre smoked like a trooper when cold, which I think is in part due to them being a lower comprssion ratio, those motors were quite 'stressed', and made IRO 900hp in race spec,
the later 10.3L's are as you say, much 'cleaner', in race form the 10.3 are regulally run at 1300hp, but require a lot more 'quality time' back with seatek as a result.

Since I don't have a extra money, I originally thought of a Cummins B motor. I love it in my truck, they have been around a long time and hold up well to modifications. I am concerned about weight though. It ain't no Yanmar.

I was thinking a 27-29 foot boat with a single surface drive diesel would make for a good cruise speed and easy on the wallet for gas. The only problem is the first time I get passed and want to crank it up a bit... Diesels typically have a great cruise speed but top end is just a small fraction about cruise.

That is unless you put in twin 750 hp torque monsters!

I found a guy who is working on a single Cummins diesel in a Warlock. I think it will be slow for a cat but it will be interesting.

You can get a 410hp supercharged version of the GM 6.5 (hummer motor) from sweden, which would probably be OK on a modified bravo.
I have a pair of turbo/intercooled 6.5's making 325hp a piece on bravo's, the boat runs 71mph.

Groove, depends on what kind of power he decides to put in that thing. The 5.9l Cummins has TONS of potential. I work for a high-performance diesel outfit called Diesel Dynamics and we have pickups with the 12v Cummins making 800rwhp on a dyno on just #2 diesel. That's about 1600ft-lbs and is daily driveable (except for tire wear :D )

When LT gets it together, I'm sure we'll be helping him put the power in. Hell, that rig had twin turbines in it at one point...he's not one to go slow.

I totally agree with the potential. I think the difference is a boat is a little more like a truck driving around with the brakes on all the time (and going up hill :) ) The trucks on TDR are great and I've been a member over three years there.

Lets face it, a 1 ton truck pulling a 20,000 # trailer is nothing like a boat running near top speed. You need a good amount of power to get going and then a small fraction to keep it going.

The trick is to build a boat with a diesel that can sustain high boost over a long period of time.

Not sure where that point is with the Cummins. If I remember correct Cummins sells a 370 hp marine B motor. I was guessing you could bump that up to 450 hp safely, getting years of hard use.

I don't feel that sustaining high boost for a long period of time would be a problem, especially with the size of intercoolers available to the boat (the water it rides in). You could even go as far as going to water cooled turbo's to increase longevity.

Load is exactly what the diesel needs to keep the boost up, where it is efficient. It think it is very suited to this type of application. I think 750fwhp would be no problem.

cobra860,
What rotation are you running?
There is a company in Oslo called Craft Marine. Jann has a lot of diesel propellers Trimax drive parts and Seatek parts. 47-911-85000 is his number.
He might have someother props you can try as well as tweaking the engines for more speed.
pat W

Cummins diamond series have 420hp, big motor though thats what my dads 50'carver has in it.

Thank you shifter, I will pass on to my friend the info, so he can deside what to do.

I have my self a 6,5 "hummer motor" from sweden.

The name is marine diesel and the engine I have is a hammerhead with compressor on top.
Run it on a bravo1 with 1,36 gearing and are at the moment testing out propellers on it.

here is some pic of my boat.

pic of the hammerhead diesel engine.

Hey, cobra860, that's a 300 isn't it? I've got the 410 (the first one infact) which has the bigger blower on it, am currently fitting it in a B28 batboat for a customer, it's going on a bravo one with a few imco bits, torque is gonna be pretty high, so time will tell if the B1 is up to it.

How quick does your boat go with the 300? and have you had any trouble with it? and, what is your drive height?

Take a look at www.boatmad.com a UK/Europe site for performance boaters, it also has a forum.

And I didn't think anyone was into diesels. You guys are a step ahead of me. Your boat looks great.

Groove: Europe (as you can see from the posters) is into diesels in a big way. Fabio Buzzi ring a bell? Europe is also the place where diesels have shed their pokey & smokey image. Turbodiesels are all the rage there. When I was over there two weeks ago, I drove a (turbo)diesel powered Beetle down the Autobahn, at 160 mph, and the thing didn't want to stop at a gas (well, diesel) station. Amazing. Volkswagen especially comes out with very hot turbocharged diesel powerplants.

Because of that (and also because of the lower price of diesel) new car sales are pushing 50% diesel in some European countries. And forget about smokey and smelley.

I hope these things will be marinized soon. Amazing weight/power ratios. Also forget about sitting on a bomb as with gas. Instead, you are sitting on a drum of heating oil.

Cobra: Looks great, congratulations, but that smoke is revolting. I mean, I'm praising the fact that diesels have shed their smokey and pokey image, and you look like you are going up in flames. Where in Norway is Arendal?

Hi levitian.
Yes the hammerhead is a 300, and the engine is great, (but it has only 12hours on it at the moment) the onlything I have problems with is the tachometer, I have used Gaffrig instruments, and was told that the hammerhead has a sensor for the tacho so standard v8 gasoline instruments will work. And it does, but the reading is wrong, But I think it is the instrument that is maybe damaged from transpotation. I was nicked on the side when I got it.
my drive height is 2" above standard, so the outdrive is pretty high up.

but to put the drive so high up was a mistake, due to Olle Terjesen, from Winrace propellers, he said that on diesel aplications just go with max 1" above standard drive heigth.

And he knows what he talks about, since he delivers proppellers al over the world, to racing teams.

cobra860, That's interesting, my drives are also 2" up from Std, but I will soon be going a further 2" with IMCO shorties, I see no reason to think this will cause any problems, and will I'm sure release a few more valuable MPH!
I've att a couple of pics of my boat/engines (note the heavy stern!

#2

#3

#4

last

leviathan,
Looks great! I'm really liking this diesel boat thread. So you can get 71 out of that with twin 410 diesels.

If you can get 71 out of it, I would assume you could cruise at 60 all day long. Any idea how much feul you go through compared to others you boat with?

To everyone who following this thread:
Who sells diesels that work in marine applications?

I know Cummin and that was on the top of my list because for the money, I think I can get the most poer out of it. I browsed Yanmar but when I looked at the price of a surface drive and a Yanmar, I quickly go back to Cummins.

Groove, No I get 71mph with 325hp per side, cruising at 60 is the norm, as at that speed it runs real nice and level, if I run below 50 with all that weight in the arse it's prone to porpoising.(if it's a bit sloppy, which over here it normally is!) the boat was originally designed for triple outboards, so my wiesels are a bit heavy realy. it is only a 7' 1" beam
did a 350 mile round trip last year, averaged bang on 60mph, and burnt 20 IMP galls of fuel/hour (total for both motors) that's imp galls at 4.54 litres each as opposed to I think, 4 litres for us galls.
over the year it works out to about 7.5 galls/hour per engine.
WOT each motor burns 15 IMP galls/hour

these motors are pretty much identical to the peninsular range (based in detroit), they do a 340hp single turbo, and a 400hp bi-turbo. engine location (mounting points) are all identical to SB/BB petrol, so bell housing and front engine feet are as per mercruiser, you can even use the mercruiser installation jig for the rigging!

www.peninsulardiesel.com ask for Matt