alh in a boat?

[slamhouse]

As the title states, would swapping an alh into a boat be a sensible idea? Not sure how the alh handles constant heavy load...

 

[campbellflage]

my vote is for 4bt

 

[Whitbread]

Since you'll have unlimited cooling water, use it for the intercooler, oil cooler, and radiator and you'd be golden for a good amount of power. Depends on what kind of boat you're talking about, but I'd love to do a mastercraft style ski boat with a healthy tdi. So here's my recipe for that.

Don't know what your budget is, but if I was doing it I'd do an 11 or 12mm pump, r520's or larger, ported head, cam, head studs, main studs, rods, and a set of crafter pistons. It'll start a little grumpy when cold, but you're not going to need to do winter starts with it .

Run a 2260vk if you want low end, or a wastegated holset he221W or borg warner efr6255 and let that baby sing! Should be peak of over 250hp when you need it and run a steady 170-180 all day long with all the cooling capacity.

 

[FlyTDI Guy]

The industrial version like AFD or marine CDX tend to run less power than our ALH. Don't know if that's for reliability but most likely. Constant, high workloads might require a bit of tweaking but an ALH marine engine would be the bomb in the right hull. Ya really think the folks @ Delta are going to embrace such a 'side' project? It'd make a great tender.

 

[slamhouse]

Haha, things are slowing down as the yachts go into the water. Such a small project would be ideal to last the summer months.

My main goal is to achieve better fuel efficiency. 2mpg from a gasser is almost unbearable... hoping to nearly double that with an alh platform.

 

[FlyTDI Guy]

I suppose as a "home-brew" project it would be kinda cool but most companies would just opt for a Yanmar or similar as they are already setup and pretty bulletproof.

 

[mogly]

There's a member here who lives in rural BC who's main mode of transportation is a PD TDI converted jet boat. He's logged many hours on it and reports it's very reliable. Maybe he'll chime in here.

 

[laughingbasho]

FlyTDI is right. A marine diesel is a very different beast than a car diesel. First, the engine is protected against corrosion, particularly in the cooling system. Second, the cam set up and compression are designed for continued high-load use.

I have friends who have pulled 1970s Rabbit diesels for use in sailboats. The results were poor. <--- my second diesel is a Yanmar, with straight-through pipes and EGR delete, lol

 

[Whitbread]

FlyTDI is right. A marine diesel is a very different beast than a car diesel. First, the engine is protected against corrosion, particularly in the cooling system. Second, the cam set up and compression are designed for continued high-load use.

I have friends who have pulled 1970s Rabbit diesels for use in sailboats. The results were poor. <--- my second diesel is a Yanmar, with straight-through pipes and EGR delete, lol

Which is exactly why you'd run heat exchangers and have a closed coolant loop system for the engine, just like a saltwater setup. Continuous high load is why I'd run the crafter (16.8:1 CR) pistons and and aggressive cam/port job. More airflow means lower egt's and lower CR for a lower pcp for given output yield less load on rod/crank bearings.

 

[car54]

Hey Matt, when do you wanna build this engine? I'll tow my boat up anytime for a swap. It's got a GM 4.3 v6 220hp with 25 hours on it.

 

[Whitbread]

Hey Matt, when do you wanna build this engine? I'll tow my boat up anytime for a swap. It's got a GM 4.3 v6 220hp with 25 hours on it.

I'm down anytime for crazy franken projects .

 

[greengeeker]

As the title states, would swapping an alh into a boat be a sensible idea? Not sure how the alh handles constant heavy load...

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=285037

 

[shakescreek]

I've got the tdi jetboat in the link above and mentioned by mogly. It's on it's 7th season now with about 1200 hours of use and still running well. Have a new tune in it this summer from Ruben with increased boost trying to bring the egt's down. Just came back upriver yesterday packing about 1600 lbs and ran for 4 hours steady at 3100rpm/135hp absorbed with no issues and egt's sitting right at 1000*f. As far as Flytdi's comment about marine versions running less power, that is often the other way around. Volkswagens marine versions of both the 3l v6 and 4.2l v8 are rated at more power than their auto counterparts and most of the big industrial marine diesel engines have the highest ratings in the marine versions. I think the endless supply of cold water for cooling is a huge advantage. In my case my iat's always run in the single digits celsius no matter how hard I run the engine and the oil cooler is much more effective as well with cold glacial water flowing through it rather than engine coolant. Even so I don't think I would run mine in the 170-180hp range as Whitbread suggested for hour after hour continuous duty. I am probably over cautious and it might be ok there but I don't like to see my egt's over 1100*f for continous duty which in my case even with single digit iat's I hit at about the 160hp point. My engine is a bpx(pd160) same as the arl and I'm running a gtb2056vl on a 4 into 1 tubing manifold with 3" straight exhaust pipe behind the turbo running dry.

 

[Whitbread]

Shakescreek, that's why I said a ported head, large cam, and lower Cr. Tdi's really come alive on boost when they can breathe. They're so choked down from the factory.

The twin turbo alh in a b4 passat wagon I built perfectly demonstrated this: pulling 2500lbs up a 5% grade with cruise set at 2300rpm/70mph. Boost was at 25-28psi and egts sat at 950-1000. Even after 10 back to back dyno runs I never saw over 1300°f egt and yet its running a 12mm pump and .345mm nozzles. 55psi boost and breathing do wonders.

 

[raffshore]

FlyTDI is right. A marine diesel is a very different beast than a car diesel. First, the engine is protected against corrosion, particularly in the cooling system. Second, the cam set up and compression are designed for continued high-load use.

I have friends who have pulled 1970s Rabbit diesels for use in sailboats. The results were poor. <--- my second diesel is a Yanmar, with straight-through pipes and EGR delete, lol

All diesel marine engine use a cloosed cooling circuit, so you have cooling fluid going through your engine like in a car, you just need a big enough water to water cooler and raw water pump.

The 1970 rabbit diesel was also a poor result in the car...

As long as u use quality engines you will be very happy, just make sure you have no turbo lag when you want to put it in a boat that planes.

We are building an OM613 twin turbo and have done many diesel conversions with great result.

 

[jjordan11]

Does anybody know if there are any adapters available to fit the VAG 4 cyl bolt pattern for a boat or would they have to be custom?

 

[Ski in NC]

Pathfinder sold engines with vag on one side, SAE5 on the other, with fwd facing starter. Vag also recently has been selling tdi boat motors with presumably a factory housing to adapt to commercially available marine gears. Two sources I know of.

Edit: Industrial vag engines may have SAE fw housings, too. Don't know about those.

But it might be easier to fab out of plate, etc. One will be fab'ing lots of stuff anyway for this project.

 

[mcneil]

It'll be about $700 shipped over from england, but you can get a VW-SAE bellhousing adapter from Marshall Industries.
http://www.mi-uk.com/products/accessories/flywheel-housing/

 

[Seatman]

Before I changed my suspension I had an ALH in a boat

 

[FlyTDI Guy]

Hahaha... yep, those estate's are a bit heavy.

 

[mogly]

Does anybody know if there are any adapters available to fit the VAG 4 cyl bolt pattern for a boat or would they have to be custom?

How about this?

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1227900

 

[Kriesel]

http://www.mercurymarine.com/engines/diesel/tdi/

 

[410onefour]

That is the whitest VW engine I have ever seen!

 

[Whitbread]

Looks like I might be building an ALH ski boat. Found an 89 ski nautique in mint condition with a sbf that has blown head gaskets or cracked heads. Guy is only asking $1500 and it's 30 mins away. Going to look at it tomorrow. If it's as good as it looks in pics, my friend and I are going to haggle him down as much as we can and split it. Damnit, another project.

 

[jjordan11]

^^^ That's exactly what I would like to do, I've been looking for that kind of deal for a while.

 

[Honeydew]

http://www.mercurymarine.com/engines/diesel/tdi/

Wow I had no idea, thanks for that link!

Looks like I might be building an ALH ski boat. Found an 89 ski nautique in mint condition with a sbf that has blown head gaskets or cracked heads. Guy is only asking $1500 and it's 30 mins away. Going to look at it tomorrow. If it's as good as it looks in pics, my friend and I are going to haggle him down as much as we can and split it. Damnit, another project.

Great idea, please document the marinization parts and processes. I'd like to put one in an I/O boat someday, looks like the merc TDIs are compatible with at least the Bravo outdrives. I just got done with a week in the keys running our Johnson 200, smoky, bulletproof, and thirsty! It'd be great to trade the thirsty for efficient.

 

[flee]

All diesel marine engine use a cloosed cooling circuit, so you have cooling fluid going through your engine like in a car, you just need a big enough water to water cooler and raw water pump.

The 1970 rabbit diesel was also a poor result in the car...

You may never have seen one but many thousands of the smaller Yanmars and Volvos and other makes used to come standard as raw water cooled.
They were protected with sacrificial anodes just like the heat exchangers are.
I almost miss the simplicity of those rugged set-ups...

The Pathfinder VW conversions were very popular with the lightweight hotrod sleds like the Santa Cruz 50 because they weighed about half as much as a Perkins diesel. I looked at a boat that had 2 of them side by side. (Probably a good idea!)
Cruisers liked them because they could get parts anywhere in the world.

 

[oilhammer]

It's funny how some people think a VAG diesel would be a bad choice for a boat, when Volkswagen themselves have already been making marine engines for decades, LOL. They even use some of their Industrial engines in gensets, forklifts, all kinds of stuff.

 

[Ski in NC]

I've still got a pathfinder. Bought used out of a sailboat with about 3600hr. It came out due to broken motor mounts. I made my own more beefy mounts, put a head gasket on it and dropped it in a 18' skiff. I ran it for about 1100hrs more. It ran 23kts wide open about 4100rpm, cruised nice at about 19-20kts at 34-3500.

I found out it needed an oil cooler after I noticed blistered paint on the oil filter!!!!

I did an epic trip from NC to Key West in the middle of winter in five days. 92gal of diesel, 950 miles. Don't ask why I did a winter trip in an open boat. Ever seen the Michelin Man driving a skiff??? COOOOLLLDDD!!! And it is a bad idea to warm up sardines on an engine. Cans can't take pressure.

It is a nice marine package: Cast al oil pan, fresh water cooled with Bowman copper-nickel core, SAE 5 flwheel housing. Front facing starter.

Boat is retired right now, looking for a refit maybe this winter.

Those sea water cooled engine (yanmar, volvo) were purpose built for that type cooling, with thick castings and NO aluminum. Mixed alloy engines such as VW cannot be run with direct cooling if you want more than a few months of life. The galvanic driven corrosion will EAT the head at coolant ports.

 

[flee]

I wonder how Yanmar manages corrosion in their diesel outboards?
I hope the whole thing isn't cast iron!