Very interesting, http://speedonthewater.com/new-boats...-mid-2012.html.

Have a great, safe weekend on the water.

Any idea on the price,also what is the weight of the engine.Thanks

I'm curious what has to be changed from the inboard version to make it an i/o (other than bolting on diff exhaust)? Is the inboard backwards in the boat? Is there bellhousing, transmission, flywheel, etc that need to be re-engineered?

I guess what's stopping these from being in an offshore boat right now with smallblock headers?

JimKid has already installed LS engines in a stern drive application, so it obviously can be done. Does anyone know if the LS bellhousing is the same pattern as the old big-block/small block/ 8.1 engines?

Paul Ray of Ilmor and I did not discuss the specifics of either reconfiguration of the engine for a high-performance application or its current configuration as a tow-boat engine. For sure, there would be some remapping/re-tuning involved because of the different duty cycle of each application.

One thing Ray did mention is that in terms of aesthetics the engine will have to become a little more generic for the sportboat world because it will have to go into a variety of boats. For MasterCraft, Ilmor created a package for one specific line of tow boats.

As for why not right now ... most likely lack of demand. The go-fast boat market, as you know, isn't exactly robust and fall always is a tough for builders. A spring release makes a lot more sense.

To me, the most interesting part of the story is that the company plans to eventually release another stern drive.

Same!

jeff

Had a phone conversation with someone the other day who inquired about this new Ilmor LSX small block and said they ere going to be priced to users at about $35K-Eeek! That's not gonna add a lot of affordability to the already badly depressed economics of performance boating!
We are going to discontinue the Raylar LSM550 offering since we did not get enough units sold to support this engines special production.
Hope Ilmor with their nice new engine can get the cost down in at least the mid $20K range to make it affordable in the small single and medium size twin engine performance boat market.

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

If i remember correctly, it is not the same but it can be used. From the old small block, there is a little machining that needs to be done for a correct fit. I also feel that the lsx block can be used in any size vessel, There are lsx blocks pushing well over a 1000hp today in vehicles. I got a pretty good feeling that this will be the up and comming!!!

Ray...that is a shame. How many did you sell, and where did they end up?? (What hulls? How fast were they? What kind of improvment over what was in those hulls originally, if a repower application?)

Also, you seemed to think that $35k is way out in left field.....how much did/does the LSM550 sell for? Just curious.

No pricing on Ilmor's engine or drive. Raylar's engine was somewhere in the $25k range, plug-in ready I believe.

Wasted, like I said, the cost-benefit isn't there not even as a big block replacement. 550hp? You can get that out of 454s & 502s for 10-20% of the cost of these LS offerings. Even a brand new crate 502 from Merc is half that cost.

MILLIONS in R&D....