zr1 motor in a boat
 

Could the new 640 hp zr1 motor be marinized? Would this be a good marine motor?

Don't know about the ZR!
but, this is in the works.
http://www.gm.com/experience/technol...LSA_Marine.pdf

it's only 540 hp .
why the trouble for a super charge motor with such litle power ?

rayalr small block is 550 hp and no charger :)

only 540 hp it's a stock small block ?? was not very long ago it would been 270 I think it's a marvel for that power from that cu in at that rpm and not be a "race" type engine....

Why not lower the compression of the raylar and put a whipple on it. Raylar is that possible?
How much $ for the gm mtor?

I heard those are going to replace the 496.

What is the difference between the ZR1 motor and the LSA 6.2
Marine other than HP and TQ?

the zr1 revs much higher I believe....to hight for most drive to handle long term...

I agree. I think the Raylar setup is much better. More common parts used.

I'm sure the raylar 550 is a great engine, but not really a fair comparison cost wise. Just based on what they sell the LS3 6.2 for, I would venture to say the raylar 550 will be twice the cost.

I like the LS3 6.2, but haven't seen it in a boat yet. How hard would it be to do that conversion?

How will the LS engine family work in Performance boats??
 

Thought I would chime in on this discussion, since Raylar has a little expierence in this area.
As for supercharging the Raylar LSM550, at this time we are not even thinking about it. Why?
1. Because the Raylar LSM550 is available now normally aspirated at 550HP and we are not swamped with orders!
The current marine high performance market is flat and projected to stay that way for awhile!
2. Supercharging marine high performance engines is not as easy or in anyway reliable enough as it has been in some automotive applications where it has been used somewhat successfully. Boats don't coast! like cars!
3. The average performance boater will not buy a motor he has to rebuild every 250 to 300 hours! nor one that use about 25 to 30% more fuel to produce its horsepower and torque!

So whats the real answer to using LS aluminum engines in performance boating?

1. The real factor that makes boats move especially in a performance mode is TORQUE!!.
2. Smaller cubic inch engines like the PROPOSED! GM LSA aluminum marine engines do not produce good big torque unless they are in BOOST, even at lower rpms. If you carefully study most of the PROPOSED torque curves for this engine you will see that the torque curve is either real PEAKY over its mid rpm band or its usably higher when the engine is in boost.
Remember most boats, even performance boats spend about 70-80% of their time crusing at 3000 to 4000 rpms. If you try and take a 6.2L - 372 CUBIC INCH LS engine with a big enough cam to make 540HP at 5600 rpms the torque levels in that 3000-4000 rpm range will be in the 350ft/lb range if the motor is not in boost. this is over 125 lbs less than a 375-425HP 496 or 502 cubuc inch engine!
If you put the engine in significant boost at these lower crusing rpms, you can make good torque in the 450 ft/lb range, but at the expense of engine durability and fuel comsumption!
As for marine conversions on stock GM 6.2L -7.0L crate type engines, GOOD LUCK!!, we tried this with pretty piss poor results. First the cast components, cranks, pistons and rods are not up to the task. They were designed to be low cost for emissions vehicle use and putting them under constant high torque and power loads pushes them beyond reasonable engine life hours and lots of subsequent early failures.
Remember these are aluminum engines and they must have closed cooling and special oil and fuel cooling provisions. The associated costs of properly fully marinizing these LS engines in a high performance level of power between 450 to 550HP is a daunting task and is more expensive than slapping some cast iron manifolds and such on an old iron big block or iron small block!
The Raylar LSM550 engine has all purpose built special forged internal parts such as crankshaft, connecting rods and pistons. the pistons alone were an incredible challange to develop with Mahle's help. We had to completely re-engineer the conventional LS type high performance piston to develop a forged piston with proper compression ratio, good ring life spacing design based on the engines short compression height and a piston and ring package that could last with hard hours of constant torque loading and high horsepower requirements of a performance marine engine! All of the GM high performance pistons failed to last in our tests!!
The other big if facing the marine high performance boating commmunity of builders and users is if GM is even going to be around to continue building these engines or if they will continue with all these high performance engine programs in the future with their pared down programs and obvious cost cutting measures??
The performance boating marine engine future is going to be a whole new animal and how many PROPOSED engines actually make it to firms like Mercury for mass marinization is a real IFFY if not a unrealistic future event!
How many super high performance handbuilt engines like the corvette ZR-1 engine ever see out of vehicle sales or use in production performance boats will most likely be ZERO!!
In the mean time what do you do if you want a powerful , all aluminum lightweight normally aspirated marine performance engine - Buy a Raylar LSM550! or go out and develop one for yourself with a large basket of dollars dollars for R&D, testing and development costs!!

Everything sometimes seems easy to the customer dreaming of a neat solution, the reality is not always that easy!!

Just a real reality check here!

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

I've been poking around Indmar's website. 400hp Gen IV SBCs. I wonder if part of their supply agreement with GM prevents them from competing with Mercury?

http://www.indmar.com/ProductLine/Ma...Y-6/index.html

http://www.indmar.com/ProductLine/In...-SS/index.html

Several years ago, someone did this with the LT-5 ZR-1 motor in a Baja. It was called the "wette vette. Cost a ton of money to do, and with today's prices for the engine and electronics it would be even more costly. Big cool factor, but probably not worth the investment.

Up to 10.5 psi boost probably has something to do with it too

http://www.popularhotrodding.com/hot...ls9/index.html

Note that the LSA 6.2 requires 'Premium' fuel, which I believe is 91 octane minimum. I have a hard time finding that on my local water-ways.

Raylar's LSM-550 only requires 89 octane. This is a big plus.

For 2008 malibu boats has for sale a 20.5 foot corvete boat with the z06 505 hp motor. They made 125 of these. Not smart enough to show link sorry.

Sbc
 

I have good luck with small blocks in boats and have raced a 6.0 LQ9 with good luck.
Check out these headers for the old architecture small blocks by indmar. They have cats but would work great!
Steve

http://www.indmar.com/ProductLine/Ma...MCX/index.html

That's interesting because if you go to CARB, http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/offroad.../recmarine.htm . Look at 8 August presentation.

Even they say "Existing catalyst technology is not durable at sustained wide open throttle operation"

To answer your questions, yes, it can be marinized, most parts are available off of the shelf. A custom PCM would be needed though.

The ZR1 would not make a good marine engine, it was built for a different purpose.

You can however, build a nasty marine engine using the available parts for the GEN 3 small blocks.

Someday soon I should have one of my projects completed using the GEN 3/4 technology. How many Factory GM small block heads have you seen that can flow over 400 cfm with light porting, stock valves and low lift?:drink:

Send you a pm / e mail,

thanks ,

bor

Ray, great read...and very true..

I just gone done speaking with one of their dealers. Apparantly Indmar doesn't sell those engines unless they are going into a new boat??????? They said its too complicated for repowers?????? That doesn't sound right, but I couldn't find any pricing either.

tried several times to contact raylar by e mail,pm or phone but no response ,so the market is flat but if you don t answer to people who are interested in the products it stay flat,if you don t want to sell overseas just say so ,

sorry I am a little disapointed , hope there s a reason for this issue.

Car guys always forgets this statement you made ---- "putting them under constant high torque and power loads pushes... "
A marine engine is a totally different animal......Christ !!! how many times does this have to be discussed......This is why i got to serious offshore .com....

http://www.michiganmotorz.com/Marine...+sterndrive%29
http://www.bayshorepowermarine.com/e.../crusader.html

Some 6.0's by marine power and crusader. I know they have international dealers. Both are 375hp 6.0's, and both have a 2 year warranty.

Raylar does alot of business overseas...I'm sure Ray will get back to you.

It's all been done before.......
 

This thread is reminiscent of the pre 496(8.1) launch. Doubters and naysayers on this very forum declared the 496 too complex, too weak parts, smaller bore diminishes airflow, buy your 502 mag while you still can, etc.,etc. Guess what? The 496 has proven itself to be a durable performer. The supercharged LSX will be engineered by GM with greater durability than any of the Merc HP packages, you can count on this. Adding pressure to a motor with existing technology in the aftermarket is a far cry from an as designed, team developed package that would eminate from a major automaker. Sure, someone like Ray or Bob Teague can make you a nice low volume motor, but the 2 of them put together couldn't even supply one decent sized boat builder. A custom design philosophy is left for those who can apprecite (and afford) it. Again, if this motor is released, it will have GREAT durability. This motor is now a better fit for GM as the economy of scale is rendering the 496 obselete(in the production sense). Take Care, Dave

yes he did indead ,so everything solved and crystal clear!!

thanks ray!!

The 496 doesn't require premium fuel. They will need to figure out how to be durable using regular fuel if they hope to be widely commercialized. My 2-cents.:drink:

Longjevity was not that big of an issue with this boat. It is more of a colectors piece. I know I wouldnt spend $110k on a skiboat and go skiing in it every weekend.

They build alot for ski boats manufacturers. I have wondered the same thing. They have some stout small blocks. I have the 320 hp, ran it in a poker run, 5000 rpm all day @ 50.1mph :drink: and it never missed a beat nor had any other issues.

Well, seven years later after the 496 was released and I'd still rather have a 502 415hp mag.

If for no other reason I prefer the 496 due to the closed cooling. It has been a very good motor to me.

That surprises me. Be sure to call him between 9 & 5 PST. If my phone call missed him, he would return my call the same day.

http://www.kemequipment.com/superchargedvortec6000.html

Supercharged 6.0 504hp marine engine by kodiak. Looks like they also have a supercharged 383 :evilb:

Looks can be decieving?
 

Nice looking package by KME, but you should ask to see the horspower and torque printout??
Curious what the pricetag and warranty are?
I dont see any closed cooling so this looks like a chancy proposition in all but the purest lake water??
On that type of a centrifical supercharger the boost is usually late on starting in the rpm band up around 4500 rpms or so. With only 6.0 liters I suspect that this engine will only produce about 350 ft/lbs of torque around 3500-4000rpms where most cruising rpms occur, UNLESS its already in BOOST and there goes engine life at cruise rpms!!
I also don't see an intercooler on this package and supercharging without an intercooler on a marine high performance engine is just shy of playing RUSSIAN ROULETTE with THREE bullets in the chamber!!
Not here to pick there offering apart, just want you guys to carefully realize that there are a lot of factors at play here when you try and get small cubic inch engines to perform like big cubic inch engines!! There is no free LUNCH!

Raylar thinks it's LSM550 big cubic inch 434 small block -naturally aspirated is the obvious answer! but heck I am biased! and What the heck do I know?

Best Rgards,
Ray @ Raylar

Hey Ray, nice to see you here in the forums. Would you please return my phone call? I left a message Tuesday & Thursday this week. I need to discuss the shipment of my Raylar intake manifold.

714-263-2626 x27

Thanks,

Devin Wozencraft
www.wozencraftinsurance.com

It does come with closed cooling standard, it's just inside the stb manifold. There is also an intercooled option. We dyno'd one last year after redoing the top end. The biggest problem with that package is the base tune from the factory is not very good with a stern drive. A jet has a way different power curve then a stern drive. It was very smooth and sounds great but in the boat it gives you about the same performance as a healthy 454... I'll dig up the dyno sheet and post it, or if anyone is calling KEM talk to Carl in service. He's about the only one that knows anything there. :drink:

I found on another tread the price tag would be $ 20000 !!
I would spend a little more and go for the lsm 550 ,more hp ,lightweight,closed cooling and lots of R&D behind it .

I wonder what octane fuel is required. Couldn't find it on their website. IMO the fuel requirement is a killer varible for most buyers, but maybe not(?). I keep my boat at a marina on a lift almost all season and only 89 octane is available. +1 for for the N/A LSM-550.:cool-smiley-011:

There will be boats on the water very soon with the LS9 in them.
They make 650+ hp in the maranized "racing" form.