alh m-Tdi marinisation to match Mercruiser Gen1 drive

shakescreek · Mar 18, 2015

Agree with Keaton, no reason for high iat's on a boat with the unlimited source of water for cooling. Mine is always below ambient, usually runs around 3 to 5 Celsius and have never seen it get out of single digits even at full throttle. Have to keep in mind though running iat's below ambient can drop a lot of moisture out of the airflow especially on warm humid days. Need to design the inlet tract so there is nowhere water can pool and then get sucked into the engine in one big slug.

keaton · Mar 18, 2015

shakescreek said:
Agree with Keaton, no reason for high iat's on a boat with the unlimited source of water for cooling. Mine is always below ambient, usually runs around 3 to 5 Celsius and have never seen it get out of single digits even at full throttle. Have to keep in mind though running iat's below ambient can drop a lot of moisture out of the airflow especially on warm humid days. Need to design the inlet tract so there is nowhere water can pool and then get sucked into the engine in one big slug.

naw... that's just free water injection....

turn the AWIC down so any condensation goes towards the inlet of the AWIC and away from the motor inlet. make the AWIC the lowest point so any water gets trapped there, its in the air stream and can be pulled back into the air.

either way this is a cool project and awesome that the OP is casting his own stuff.

OP what prop are you gonna run?

shakescreek · Mar 18, 2015

Actually I would suggest the opposite. I set mine up at first as you are suggesting Keaton, with the intercooler lower than the intake manifold and the outlet up. Didn't work so well. The water would drip back into the lower tank until quite a volume would build up, then the airflow would suddenly grab a whole slug of it at once and push it up into the engine. It would put the fire right out when it did this and the engine would almost stop then would catch and go normal again until the next slug of water built up. Ran it for a while with a small hole drilled in the lower tank and a bucket under it to collect the water and was amazed at how much water would collect in the bucket. Then I reconfigured it with the intercooler higher than the intake manifold, outlet tank on the bottom and sloped down towards the manifold so any water would just blow through as fast as its produced with nowheres for it to pool. No more issues since then.

mogly · Mar 19, 2015

shakescreek said:
Actually I would suggest the opposite. I set mine up at first as you are suggesting Keaton, with the intercooler lower than the intake manifold and the outlet up. Didn't work so well. The water would drip back into the lower tank until quite a volume would build up, then the airflow would suddenly grab a whole slug of it at once and push it up into the engine. It would put the fire right out when it did this and the engine would almost stop then would catch and go normal again until the next slug of water built up. Ran it for a while with a small hole drilled in the lower tank and a bucket under it to collect the water and was amazed at how much water would collect in the bucket. Then I reconfigured it with the intercooler higher than the intake manifold, outlet tank on the bottom and sloped down towards the manifold so any water would just blow through as fast as its produced with nowheres for it to pool. No more issues since then.

Wow, that's a bit scary. I've worked on several engines that have ingested water while running- each with bent rods.

SS you're dealing with icy cold glacier river water are you not? The OP will be dealing with warmer water so IAT should be higher by the same factor.

shakescreek · Mar 19, 2015

That's correct mogly, I'm on glacial water. The op will be using warmer water, and has a smaller intercooler as well, so he may not run into the same problem with dropping water out of the intake air.

keaton · Mar 19, 2015

shakescreek said:
Actually I would suggest the opposite. I set mine up at first as you are suggesting Keaton, with the intercooler lower than the intake manifold and the outlet up. Didn't work so well. The water would drip back into the lower tank until quite a volume would build up, then the airflow would suddenly grab a whole slug of it at once and push it up into the engine. It would put the fire right out when it did this and the engine would almost stop then would catch and go normal again until the next slug of water built up. Ran it for a while with a small hole drilled in the lower tank and a bucket under it to collect the water and was amazed at how much water would collect in the bucket. Then I reconfigured it with the intercooler higher than the intake manifold, outlet tank on the bottom and sloped down towards the manifold so any water would just blow through as fast as its produced with nowheres for it to pool. No more issues since then.

why not run a drain hose through the hall so it dumps over board or into the dry part or the exhaust system at a 45* angle post turbo. the angle should create a vacuum plus the charge pipes will be at a higher pressure then post turbine.

dripping water in large amounts into the intake would scare me as posted above, bent rods or a hydro lock

shakescreek · Mar 19, 2015

Like the exhaust idea should work well. It doesn't seem to be a problem the way its configured now though so will probably just leave it as is. Think I will put a tube into the exhaust though for my crankcase vent hose.

iddhi · Mar 31, 2015

Reached 22mph yesterday with four people on board. Will provide a video asap.
Had 50/50 water/methanol injected to keep exhaust temps down and gain extra power.

ben2go · Mar 31, 2015

iddhi said:
Reached 22mph yesterday with four people on board. Will provide a video asap.
Had 50/50 water/methanol injected to keep exhaust temps down and gain extra power.

This is great news.What make and model boat did you put it in?

iddhi · Mar 31, 2015

25 feet searay cabin cruiser.

ben2go · Mar 31, 2015

iddhi said:
25 feet searay cabin cruiser.

Sweet.

iddhi · Apr 13, 2015

Here a short Video showing the acceleration from wake speed to Plane @ 22mph.
The only disadvantage of the mechanical injection VS original electronic injection would be low speed vibration, it seems the electronically managed power plant runs much smoother at low rpm.
This is especially noticeable if the boat is operated in a large no wake zone such as Morro Bay, i had to operate the boat a little above max speed limit to reduce the vibration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKsXV9Qdnq8

ben2go · Apr 14, 2015

I think a lot could be gained from gearing and prop selection.I'm not good with those.

greengeeker · Apr 14, 2015

iddhi said:
Here a short Video showing the acceleration from wake speed to Plane @ 22mph.
The only disadvantage of the mechanical injection VS original electronic injection would be low speed vibration, it seems the electronically managed power plant runs much smoother at low rpm.
This is especially noticeable if the boat is operated in a large no wake zone such as Morro Bay, i had to operate the boat a little above max speed limit to reduce the vibration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKsXV9Qdnq8

This is so cool!

Did you have the engine compartment open? It sounded pretty loud where you were standing. What RPM were you running it at?

iddhi · Apr 14, 2015

To my surprise the boat is not noticeably louder then it used to be powered by the V8. What you hear in the video might be misleading.

iddhi · May 26, 2015

After many long nights i finally succeeded to eliminate all diagnostic trouble codes related to the minimum harness i built.

The ECU (EDC15) complained about the missing instrument cluster, missing ABS unit, Aircon module and so on.

Finally no error messages appear, even in VCDS.

CFM · May 26, 2015

Nice fabrication work! What are you using for the flywheel and starter?

iddhi · May 27, 2015

Flywheel and engine side starter are from the industrial engine, Linde forklift i think...

Whitbread · Jun 4, 2015

If you made an extra exhaust manifold, count me in for one. So much awesomeness here.

iddhi · Jun 8, 2015

Whitbread said:
If you made an extra exhaust manifold, count me in for one. So much awesomeness here.

I'm planning to offer a complete kit including the harness, bell and exhaust manifold, once its all done and tried.
Let me know if you want to become a beta tester ;-)

Whitbread · Jun 14, 2015

iddhi said:
I'm planning to offer a complete kit including the harness, bell and exhaust manifold, once its all done and tried.
Let me know if you want to become a beta tester ;-)

Heck yeah! I'd only need the manifold, my BEW will be going in a ski boat with a different transmission setup than you have.

sauvesun · Jul 23, 2015

This is awesome, iddhi could you include me on your list of beta testers ?, I have been considering a tdi install in a houseboat for a few years, this would speed up the process.
Cheers to your mad R & D skills.

CoolAirVw · Jul 24, 2015

forgive my ignorance but why does a boat need a water cooled exhaust manifold?

And wouldn't that affect turbo operation negatively? HOT expanding gases is what drives the turbo. I've seen performance mods that try to keep heat in the manifold. (ceramic coating, manifold wraps ect)

iddhi · Jul 24, 2015

Hi sauvesun, all right i keep you posted.

Hi CoolairVW, all or almost all marine manifolds are water cooled,
otherwise heat would build up in the engine room, especially in very tight modern engine compartments.

ben2go · Jul 24, 2015

CoolAirVw said:
forgive my ignorance but why does a boat need a water cooled exhaust manifold?

And wouldn't that affect turbo operation negatively? HOT expanding gases is what drives the turbo. I've seen performance mods that try to keep heat in the manifold. (ceramic coating, manifold wraps ect)

Have a read through this thread and check out the pics.Iddhi has cast is own exhaust manny.

Mikkijayne · Jul 24, 2015

Possibly also interested in a manifold. I'm just planning on insulating the stock manifold with exhaust wrap and a turbo blanket. If that gets too hot I'll make a stainless watercooled manifold.

AchTTung · Oct 23, 2015

Next week I'll be having my 38' LOA, 11' beam houseboat hauled to my house with the plan of cutting the entire back of the boat off, re-powering, upgrading the merc drive from an MC1 to a gen 1 Alpha 1, and building the bilge compartment to fit the motor (instead of trying to shoehorn anything into what already exists).
BTW, this is the one advantage of a steel hulled boat. Oh, and beaching it on anything and only having to worry about scratched paint.
Anyway, as luck would have it, I picked up a complete 1Z a few weeks ago for a couple hundred dollars. Going to rebuild it because all I know is that the turbine wheel broke off the shaft.
WAS planning on pulling the 250 cu.in. I-6 out of the boat for a 350 V8 (already pulled from a Chaparral) and WAS going to put the rebuilt 1Z into my 96 Passat TDI for minimal downtime of my daily driver.
I think if you can get your TDI swap kit put together before next June/July, you can count me in as a beta tester.
I've seen my model houseboat powered by 90hp outboards up to twin V8's. It's a displacement boat, so as long as it can chug back and forth across Lake Champlain between Vermont and New York, it's powered well enough. Hull speed for the boat is ~10 knots.

beachcreature · Nov 1, 2015

So whats happening with those manifolds? I am very curious as I am building a 1.9 tdi for my 23' Penn Yan Avenger boat. It was gonna go in a Cherokee but plans have changed.
I have a Bowman exhaust manifold but the exhaust port itself is so small (something like 1.75" ID) I dont know how well it will spin my Garrett T3 (this is what I have to work with for now).
Thanks,
Martin

jrnj · Nov 8, 2015

2.0L vw TDI to mercruiser bravo 2

Hi Iddhi,
Moving ahead with my conversion now. Have a 2.0L VW diesel (CJAA) which is going to be mounted up to a Bravo 2 (with diesel gear set) on my 43 houseboat. Boat has a planing hull but I won't be looking for more than hull speed (~8kt). Still deciding on Turbo and ECU options. I'm definitely interested in any parts that you're making especially the flywheel/coupler. My project is current. Plan to have the boat back in the water this spring (need I mention that I'm an optimist!). Anyway, great project you have. Let me know what parts you have available. Thanks!

evguy1 · Nov 8, 2015

jrnj said:
Hi Iddhi,
Moving ahead with my conversion now. I'm definitely interested in any parts that you're making especially the flywheel/coupler.

What gas engine was in front of the leg?
We have an adapter to go from the TDI to a GM V8 bell housing and flywheel.
The Merc coupler would just bolt to the GM flywheel like it did on a gas engine.

alh m-Tdi marinisation to match Mercruiser Gen1 drive

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