Ecoboost engines?

[Speedling]

Just brainstorming here... don't have the money to play, but fun to theorize.
I like the new turbo 4 cylinder from ford. Ecoboost 2.0 makes like 270 hp.
You can get aftermarket electronic setups straight from Ford to plug these things into a hot rod.
You can find the engines on Ebay and junk yards for under $2k, sometimes just over $1k.
Would there be a problem with throwing a couple of these in our boats?
It would be a bit heavier, suck more gas, make more heat, require a modified cooling system... BUT....

It would run up to 7000 rpm, eliminating the need for a gear reduction. It would be tested in their labs to have excellent qualities in extreme conditions. It would NOT require a turbo rebuild every 100 hours or whatever like the Rotax. It would create a ton of torque which in turn would allow that impeller to spin at a much higher rpm and still create the thrust!

Even if you take torque out of the equation, I have figured that you need about 5 hp per engine for 1 mph.
If I'm at 160 hp right now and going 50, then a jump to 270 is a difference of 110 hp which should equate to a 22 mph difference. Figure in some loss and you still have a 20 mph difference. That's pushing you to 70 mph guys.... That's nuts.

I don't think i'll be doing this to my boat, don't worry. Unless someone wants to buy my current engines for like 8 grand or something....
I was actually thinking about putting them into a cruiser like a 26-30 foot cuddy offshore go fast type of boat. Don't have the funds for it, but just theorizing. These guys put a ton of money into big blocks that make like 400 hp, and then like 600 hp supercharged. I don't see why you couldn't get a smaller go fast boat to be lighter with the 4 cylinders and even if you tweaked them, made 300 each, and totalled 600 hp, and then went pretty dang fast. Just theorizing..
And dreaming....
If my kids don't get into water sports soon though, it may become a reality.

 

[Speedling]

Sorry, I guess they are more like 250 hp, but STILLL.....
https://www.fordracingparts.com/parts/part_details.asp?PartKeyField=22999
http://www.fordracingparts.com/parts/part_details.asp?PartKeyField=22998

 

[ar240owner]

I like new technology , If you think about it , big block Chevys are 50 year old technology !!!! So heck yea !!!!! I like the way you think !!!!

 

[Speedling]

I guess this is the same idea as the svho motors from yamaha, except you can find them!
I wonder though, what jet pump you would use on something like this? A Yamaha pump? Sea Doo pump with their different reverse gate? A big engine type like Dominator pumps?
Why don't the off shore type boats use jets anyways? Yamaha uses them, the go fast big block 16' jet boats use them, but that deep hull type of boat doesn't use jets at all ever! Even your big ferry boats that cross Lake Michigan use jets, so I don't understand why they wouldn't use them.
I also wondered about a counter rotating impeller in order to get rid of the different impeller pitches for different sides, but that would mean a type of transmission on the engine, and I think it would just take away from the performance and wouldn't be worth it.

Going on ebay and powerboat listings etc. there area a LOT of boats out there with no motors for CHEAP.
You could go get one for like $10k-$15k and then two ecoboost 2.0's on ebay would be like $4k, but then another $4k for the computer junk from Ford to run them, so now you're at $23k. This is assuming you have drives already on there. I would do a water test and see how fast it goes and use it and abuse it like crazy for a while. THEN, swap out those out drives for jet pumps! I think in most boats this would require dropping the engines lower in the boat as well, however, so it would take a good bit of work.

C'mon, this is my dream for the Yamaha Cruiser I want, lol! Sell my 212ss and go for it? Probably cost me $30k by the time I manufacture stuff and redo engine bays etc.

Not going to do it for right now, but putting the pieces together is fun. We would love to head up to our friends in Michigan on Lake Michigan from time to time, but with the 212 the conditions really have to be perfect, and the time it takes to get up there is long enough for the lake to churn up a big storm. Also would love to take a cruise all the way up to Mackinac Island some time with maybe one stop overnight to visit with said friends, but a cuddy cabin would be ideal for that. I don't want to get this type of boat yet simply because I want to see what my kids are going to get into. Wakeboarding and surfing and tubing is important in kids' lives, right?

 

[Julian]

The offshore boats don't use jets because the boats come out of the water too much. High speed river jets are cool on smoother water, but once you leave the surface...no thrust. The big cigarette style boats have their running gear well below the hull, so even if the entire boat is out of the water, the prop may still be in the water....thus...almost no drag yet you still have thrust.

This is a cool idea....but the fluid dynamics of the intakes and pumps might not be a good match....although there is that video of the guy with an LS that put two Acura (I think) motors in it (going to google it)

 

[Julian]

 

[txav8r]

Big offshore boats often use jets...but a boat over 50' in length isn't as likely to come off the water.

 

[dbrunone]

Turbos have a time lag to spool up, and they require high RPM's to do so. So the holeshot would not be as good as a supercharger, this is why most marine forced induction engines are superchargers not turbos.

As for your top speed calc, fluid resistance is proportional to velocity squared, so power and speed are not linearly related. In other words, the faster you go, the more power you need to get that extra 1mph. You might need 10hp to get from 50mph to 51mph, but you'll need much more to get from 69mph to 70mph.

The other downside is, turbos run red-hot and need a lot of cooling. Plus they are oil-cooled and water-cooled. If the turbo bearing fails (and they do), shreds of the bearing get into the oil, then into your engine, and before you know it you need a new long block. With the frequent cooling issues on the Yamahas, I'm not sure I want to add another critical cooled component to the mix. A little too risky on the water for me....

 

[Speedling]

Man, I wish I knew where my thread was where I did the math and comparisons....
It was a straight line increase for the waverunners of 5 hp per 1 mph until you go the supercharged models, where the power jumped significantly, but the speed didn't. However, between supercharged models, the increase of hp and speed was again 5 hp per 1 mph.

Not talking about 50' boats here, but that was part of the thoughts when comparing everything. I mean, why would there be that big gap between all the boats. I think the boat coming out of the water more may be the biggest thing there. Maybe I need to watch a million more videos of go fast boats and take note of the back end dynamics....

Turbo's have one thing that superchargers do NOT. When you DO come out of the water, and the engine is free loaded and then it pounds back into the water and puts a lot of force back on the engine, it does the same to the supercharger. This is why the Rotax engines with superchargers have their washer issues. It's part of a clutch system to help lessen the blow. But then you need to rebuild it more often due to the clutch. A turbo wouldn't see this instant change and wouldn't get beat all to heck. I actually looked closely at the Rotax/Sea doo supercharger to put on our boats but the ECU wouldn't allow it I found out. It's why the turbo kits got pulled from the aftermarket.