I'm interested to know what's available to turbocharge any of Mercury's v8 stern drives. From what I have found, there are a few odd ball, and old carb kits that have been produced over the years. What I'm interested in are any current production components or kits to do a legitimate water cooled turbo setup.

Thanks!
Brian
EFI-Unlimited

Check with Hardin Marine. They are currently putting a kit together for both the 525 and for custom builders. I don't think the kit is ready for release just yet, but they may be able to get you the parts that you need to put your own setup together.

Eddie

Very cool. That's good info.

The reason I'm asking is because I'm am considering manufacturing a line of builder parts for marine turbocharging. Currently, I manufacture a small book of import and domestic performance parts, and I have always been fascinated with the marine market.

It appears that the community is ready to embrace the technology, if the parts were available.

What are common drive centers that people have? I have loosely looked at the design of what I want to make, and i realized drive center distance was going to be a major design factor.

Brian
EFI-Unlimited

What are drive centers? Do you mean center to center on the exhaust manifold where the turbo would mount? Or the center line of each engine in a twin engine app?

gale banks used to have some turbo kits years ago, some pieces still floating around....be interested in talking to you as putting together a turbo EFI LS1 drag radial car, all new to me....Rob [email protected]

34.5" is the smallest center to center for side by sides I have heard of. Standard is 35-9/16". But you want to keep in mind that a large percentage of high performance rigs are staggered, and you have to find a way for the forward inboard pipe to go around/through the other motor.

Thats what I was looking for. I have a single engine boat, and i want to make sure the manifolds will clear each other in twin engine setups.

Since there is no real 'standard' for staggered setups, those will have to be dealt with on a case by case basis, but I don't see it being a big deal.

I'll post updates as they come. This could get interesting...

Brian
EFI-Unlimited

The width is not only important for twin engine vee's (side by side, not staggered), but for cats as well where the motors get tucked pretty far down.

How tight do you think? I assumed that if I could fit them side by side on standard centers, they would fit anywhere.

Brian
EFI-Unlimited

A good guideline to look at would be the width of the merc 850's or even the new merc 1350's. I think you can find the dimensions on merc racings website. I believe there was one mti race boat that put bumps on the side of the boat to fit the headers in. The narrower the better.