You can power anything with diesel, even a 17'er. There are anything from 5HP single lunged diesels, all the way up to 36 cylinder radials... whatcha gotta do is, figure out what fits the application.
There are high speeder diesels and reaaaaaaaal sllloooooow turnin' torquers. There's diesels weighing less than 100lbs to many many tons.
Application, application, application....then decide what'll fit, give time to get real, start over, then find the engine that really works.
There's a diesel out board to fit an 8' boat here:
http://www.ecvv.com/product/914724.html
or how about the first ever diesel out board here:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/at...jetboat-engines-coming-first-diesel-motor.png
American made of course!
What gets me more than anything are the idiots in Detroit building electric cars with only a 40 mile range, listed for nearly $40,000, yet no one will build a hybrid diesel electric, with that little out bard as main power, attached to a 115V generator/alternator to feed a "small" battery bank.
That thing would get over 200mpg on a bad day.
Anyway, I don't care if ****-age never shows up again, this was a fun little expedition into alternative diesel platforms. Look how big and popular this thread got all by itself. I think it was highjacked no less than five times.
Boats being near and dear to my heart, I couldn't help but to participate over and above my normal self.
The common thread that holds all of this together is diesel engines. It's too bad nobody showed up that actually had some photo's and ownership experience of a 6.9/7.3l marine set up.
I had a lot of fun in this thread... thanks to all of you for humoring me, even if it wasn't your intent. You all had some great input in this thread. Glad the ownership didn't sink it because it was boat related and other than Ford stuff along the way.
Dadburnit!!
I forgot,
In my signature line, you will see a 24' Sea Ray with a 150 HP VW Marine Diesel. It's attached to an older Volvo 290 Duo-prop. The thing does almost 32 knots. The engine was designed to power up to a 28' express model boat to 28' knots. It took the place of a Chevy 350- 290HP. The gasser only took the boat up to 26 knots, mostly because of torque issues. It had the same diesel out drive as before, but I was able to increase my prop size and pitch to increase speed. The Chevy made 4500rpm's, the VW only 3600 rpm's.... see what slow burnin' fuel will do for you?