So If you had a truck, coudl you rip out the engine, then order a new one for it, saying you messed it up somehow, then do that again to have a set of engines? How much is the marinization cost? What if I have a Sierra with a gas engine, think they woudl buy that im trying to convert it to diesel? But then messed up so i need another one? Is the duramax that much lighter then the yanmar or just able to make more power?

??? I was told the truck has to be a diesel engine truck. Maybe as others have said it has to do with supply? Does anyone work for a GM dealer?

The beauty of the engine is:

LOA, same as a conventional V8. The 6 Cylinder Yanmars are quite a bit longer. This allows for CG flexibility.

Weight, 948 lbs (Hammerhead marinized) where as the Yanmar 440 is 1136 and the 480 is 1450 ish. All without a transmission.

RPM, 4,000 rpm which is good for performance and propeller selection.

Cost, the duramax is under $20 k from the dealer. Marinized? Yanmar is??

Service, can this engine be serviced or parts obtained from a local GM dealer? If so that is a huge bonus.

Exhaust, I see they are using the CMI headers so there is probably more cross over parts (sea pumps, brackets, P.S. Pumps and Brackets) from standard Marine Engines than would be the case of other engines.

They certainly have a lot of positive things going for them.

What is a Merlin diesel? I've seen ads for boats that have them.

It cant be that hard to get one, find someone with a chev duramax truck, and have them order you one.

Marinizing wouldnt be that hard if you used closed cooling, would it ? Headers would probably be the big issue, Im sure cmi would make you some custom ones.

What is reliable HP/torque with chips etc ?

CM

Stay away from the merlin, I have a friend with two they are tempermental at best. Its an old ford truck motor, they have mechanical injection high compression etc.

And you cant find anybody that can work on them.


CM

Also what about going to the junkyard and getting a duramax out of a totaled truck ? Would be a cheap way to get a spare.

CM

The new higher hp version is a 2006 model. People chip these things and run the hell out of them but I do not know the hp of the chipped engines.

The salvage yards are probably the best idea. They simply do not care about the VIN issue but what I found from a customer attempting to use a Cummings out of a Dodge was a bit troublesome.

The engines are electronic. He purchased an engine that was out of a stick shift truck.

So far so good. He gets it home and attempts to start wiring the engine. All bad!

Seems the engine needs a clutch sensor to be there to tell the engine it is okay to start when the clutch is depressed. No clutch major no start issue.

So someone will have to be able to tap into these electronic boxes and eliminate the clutch signal or Park/Neutral signal that the engines need in order to start.

I think the Duramax uses the standard BBC exhaust port sizes so the standard CMI BBC engine headers will work.

Well I'll be damned. That's a bit of usefull information. Someone's sure to try this now.

what about the turbo? i would guess it would need to be swapped to a water cooled unit...

Or a heat blanket? What are they doing on the Hammerhead?

Is Yanmar's water cooled or just heat isolated?

I saw the CMI header thing somewhere. Who ever is a CMI dealer could ask.