new engine & surface drives

[pop]

hi everyone

ok i am looking at getting a D6 280 HP volvo or the yanmar 310hp, has anyone got any info on best prices and the engines? what stands up to commercial use better, volvo or yanmar? do they all have world wide guarantees?

there are not many ribs with surface drives, why is this? do you know how much they are? what are the pros and cons of having one instead of a sterndrive? what is the maintance like on them? do you get hit for extra when mooring?

thanks ribsters

[jwalker]

I thought the D6's are 310 and 370hp.

[TIM]

My experance is that Volvo make all there parts slights Odd... so you have to buy orignal parts ....... so when I got a qoute for some parts, when rebuilding a small volvo marine engine... the cost of the parts was more expencive than a new engine !!!! they should have just asked for my phone number and told me to put a pound sign in front !!!!!!!

where the Yanmar 4.2 engine is actually a engine developed yamaha , which is built yamaha or under licence by lots of companys , like toyota , yanmar, kaboto, etc etc ....

So parts are widely available if anything major goes wrong ....

Plus the Yanmar unit is lighter buy 250kg I think..... well in outdrive fourm anyway..........

But there is alot to be said for coompresser and a turbo charged volvo... ie no turbo lag ....

[pop]

sorry jwalker you are wrong look . http://www.frenchmarine.com/Product.aspx?PID=478&CID=82

Tim i have heard mixed thoughts about the volvo my friend has had problems with the internal cooling pump etc. what is your experience with them?

the yanmar are a nice unit but they seem to corrode fast in the ribs, and i dont really like the bravo legs the turbo seems to be a little funny nothing for ages and then 0-30kts in no time, it cant do the leg any good.

yamaha are a pain in the ass they are so expensive to repair and it is a pain to work on for instance the collent pump on the engine is placed behind the fan belts and all the timing gear i find them a nightmare. do you have any good websites that i can look on ? thanks for the help, do you know anything about surface drives ?

[TIM]

I have never owner any of these engines .... but I have been reserching inboard diesel for years ...as I will eventualy have a rib with 1 or 2 of them .........

A lot of guys complain about the turbo lag in the Yanmars ... especaly the 315.... 24 valve unit because the engine is working on its limit of HP output ....... but the yamaha 240hp dont seen to suffer that problem, cause of the smaller turbo to spool up etc.

The bravo 3 legs are a time bomb on the 315hp yammar and pretty much go bang within 250hrs ... but bravo 3's will seem to happly take V8 800hp petrol with no real disasters ....... ????????

Tom In redbay was telling me last week that that the put 900hrs on his yamaha leg before one of them went pop!!! and since he has fitted transom showers ... he has not killed a leg since ..... he is second only to the MOD for fitting yamaha engines and legs ....... he is currently testing legs and engines for yamaha, and the breif he was given was to break them !!!! he is not allowed to change oil or filters for 500hrs !!!! and he drives his boat a one throttle setting only ..... 100% power 100% of the time !!!!!!

My experance of Volvo is that they are well built well designed and very reliable....But expensive to repair ........ and the 6 cylinder engine has all its fuel injector pipes going over the rocker cover so when you have to check valve clearences you have to basicly remove the fuel system !!!! so a simple 2 hour job turns into all day stint !!!

The Yamaha and the Yanmar are the same engine ...... except for turbo sizes and injector sizes in different horespowers ...... I think Mercruser use the same engine too... but only 250 hp in diesel ..... but I am not 100% on that.

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by pop

sorry jwalker you are wrong ....

Am I?

Go to Volvo's web site and you can download all the info you need as pdf's.

They do 280hp too but you're not limited to that.

The early D6's didn't have compressors. Volvo claimed the extra engine capacity (over the KAD series) provided enough low speed power but the later ones have both compressors and turbochargers. There is no mention of the compressor on the 280 literature and, if that's the case, it will make the low speed pickup sluggish.

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by TIM

... and the 6 cylinder engine has all its fuel injector pipes going over the rocker cover so when you have to check valve clearences you have to basicly remove the fuel system !!!! so a simple 2 hour job turns into all day stint !!!

Well, just the pipes and injectors but yes, isn't that a pain? Is that the case on the D6 too?

[codprawn]

Surface drives are pretty rare. EPS make the Tigershark which looks very interesting.

http://www.epsmarine.com/html/frames/fr_1.html

Was at Ribex one year and looked the business. Loved the look of the surface drive - very nice engineering and just looked "right".

Obviously very efficient at high speeds - used quite a lot now in sunseekers etc.Probably not so good at low speeds or for acceleration.

[Rodan]

Surface drives can be awful in the harbour, fine if you are not going to spend any time going along side or turning at low speed BUT...

[pop]

Hi ribsters

tim thanks for you words i understand that the yamaha is a good engine and has a nice steady turbo however they are a pain when they go wrong, i have a yamaha ME420 STI 240hp and it a good unit it has 1,180hr and i change the oil ,fillters every 50hrs. i am taking this one out because i find it a little slow when running at 3,000rpm. so ofcourse i find myself running it hard all the time, i am putting it in my brothers rib. i wanted to put a bigger lump in the back and run at lower revs, i am not concerned about Manoeuvrability of the surface drive i am looking at the maintance and durabilty over long distances the rib is going to new zealand in 3 months and i will be doing some serious ribing i use my rib alot and need a reliable unit that can stand a good thrashing. the new yamaha might be an option do you know much about them

jwalker i dont care i just said i was looking at a D6 280 hp you said there was no such thing and there is so what else do you want to prove that what i said does exist

[Alan]

Surface drives generally cannot be trimmed i.e. are fixed in position. They also generally require a seperate gearbox which outdrives do not. Finally as outdrives are much more prevalent they are relatively (and I mean relatively) cheaper!

The only surface drive RIB I can recall was Mike Deacon's 3rd Hot Lemon. He had tabs for lateral trim but had no way of trimming up in a following sea which made handling a little interesting IIRC.

Yanmar 315's and Bravo 3x's are a bad combination as Tim says. Failure is only a matter of time.

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by pop

.....i just said i was looking at a D6 280 hp you said there was no such thing ....

I don't remember saying that.

[pop]

j walker u said i thought the D6 was 310 to 370hp, implying that there was no D6 280hp that i was on about. go away if you have no usefull info, why do you just post ballshit when i am trying to learn about what i want to lern about?

so i guess the best option is to stick to the sterndrive? what is the best combination i do like my yamaha just wish she had a little more, whats the new one like? i dont normaly like bying new engines as they take 2-3 years for the manufacturer to sort out. what are the prices of the new yamaha?

have you looked here www.zf-marine.com they look quite a nice setup

thanks people

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by pop

j walker u said i thought the D6 was 310 to 370hp, implying that there was no D6 280hp

Pop, you've picked me up completely wrongly. If we were having a chat to you face to face and you said you were interested in a Volvo D6 280hp and I replied, "I thought the D6 was 310 and 370hp." would you give me an agressive reply or would you make a more civil reply along the lines of, "They make a 280hp too, I've been looking at it on a web site." ?

go away if you have no usefull info, ..

Since I don't know you and you were asking about engines in the 280hp & 310hp range, I thought it might be useful to make sure you were also aware of the 310 and 370 engines and I took the trouble to post pictures of them for you. I also mentioned the lack of a compressor just as additional info and highlighted the possible effect on performance if that engine was used.

If it was the case that you were already aware of these motors and their characteristics, fine, you could have simply said so.

I apologise for intruding on your thread and posting information that was of no use to you.

[Searider]

Hi Ben,

Have you considered the Yamaha 422 275hp or 432 315hp on Yamahas new twin prop sterndrive? They should drop straight in.

There's a chap in the marina here who's got one in an 8m Coastline and is very pleased.

Should give you the extra performance you want with an engine with which you are familiar. I take your point about the awquardness (sp?) of repairs but I guess Volvo / Mercruiser / Yanmar will all be similar.

Also consider the backup that there will be when you get to NZ. No point having an engine that you can't get spares for.

Fitting a surface drive would be expensive and not necessarily successful - a project best left to the manufacturer to develop I feel.

[TIM]

JWALKER ...... I am not sure on the D6.........

POP...... yamaha do a new 275hp which is the same engine you have ...but slighlty bigger turbo and uprated pump ...and has electronics bolted on to it too.....

the 240hp you have , can be turned up by 20hp with a simple tinker with the fuel pump and alot of people get this done ..... they put out a bit more black smoke ... but who cares !!!! you say you run your engine at 3000.... I think the WOT is 3800rpm .... and I sure you could run that engine at 3600rpm for extended periods of time with out ill effects ...infact its better to run a diesel 'hard' than overloaded.

the new yamahas 275phs and the 315hp are still the same 4.2 block ...so they should be very reliable ..... also the 'new' duoprop that yamaha have now, is a combination off volvo duo prop bottom leg and yamaha hydra drive on the top for the gear shift. Yamaha and volvo developed the duoprop for volvo, and yamaha werent allowed sell the twin prop gearbox in US or Europe , but it was on sale some Arab countrys under the yamaha name ...... that licence agreement ran out last year .....so the new yamaha stuff is well proven and its been currently well tested ....so I think it will be proven to be one of the most relaible stern drive units on the market........ Or the Volvo ... but there is a large weight penalty for that.

[pop]

Duncan thaks for the post what rib is it? i might go over and have a look see if i can meet the man who ownes it, i agree about the sp i would get scorpion to do it if i was. however the way my mind is going is back to the big yamaha, i have a dealer in NZ five mins up the road from where i am living.great to see you out on the water.

Tim thanks for your info, i am trying to find out a little more about the big yamaha what is the time it takes to get a new engine? is the pump a uprated water pump? how do you get more horses out of your engine? (tell me the secret)

jwalker we all enjoy the same thing so lets relax and remeber this is fun, sorry if we got of on the wrong foot. do you have any info on the big yamaha? how do you find that volvo ?

[TIM]

Sorry i should have been more exact in my posts, the uprated pump i was talking about was the fuel pump......

and to get the extra hp from your current engine there is a wire locked bolt on the fuel pump, that has to be ajusted to allow the squash plate in to travel more, and allow more fuel to be pumped into the engine...... I dont know exactly how too do it but lots of people do it to your engine, so it shouldnt be hard to find out.

[Dieselroy]

Hi
if youre looking for a big diesel, why dont consider the Mercruier 320 HP
. We have run 250 hours this year in a 9,5m tornado and except some small problems with the brackett for the heat exchanger (dont know if this is the proper word) it has run without problem.
We change oil/filter every 50 hours, an run it on a bravo one drive
wich also has been running without problems.
You can also get this engine with a gearbox if you like to go with a surface drive.
A friend here in Norway is currently testing out a new 9,5 meter wich is
specialmade for surface drives. He is getting respectable performance out of it with a 300 hp Mercruiser.

The Mercruiser is much faster in acceleration than the Yanmar.

Good luck
Roy

[Andy Gee]

Looking at the sort of hours and type of running that you are doing I personally would replace your existing engine with one of the new Yamaha Range. I have around 110 hours on the new STi 422 since the end of April and they are fantastic. They are extremly good on fuel, considering that they are pushing a 11m boat.
I looked at both the Volvos and the Yamar range before opting again for the Yamaha-no electronics on the base model . IMHO yanmars are only reliable enough to use as ground tackle for moorings .
Recently saw a unit that had around 80 hours of running during 18 months that was eating it's self away from the inside out- and the boat was not kept on the water. Yanmars response......it's out of warranty .
Andy