Valueing an old engine
Discussion
I'm in the process of buying an old speedboat; it comes with a ford 2.6 straight 6 out of a Mk2 Zephyr, which I intend to replace with something much much lighter. What if anything is the Zephyr mill worth? A possible plus point is that it may have been tweeked by Raymond Mays, the obvious negative is that it appears to be seized. Am I looking at weighing it in at the scrappy, or can I expect to flog it to a Zephyr fan and be able to stand a round of drinks and a fish supper?
Raymond Mays cylinder heads have a value, but not a great deal unless someone with a 2.6 Ace wants to buy it, and there were only around 40 of those made anyway. Frankly, as a seized engine who knows what damage there is inside so it is probably scrap value anyway. Why not just keep it and rebuild it for the boat?
hidetheelephants said:
I'm in the process of buying an old speedboat; it comes with a ford 2.6 straight 6 out of a Mk2 Zephyr, which I intend to replace with something much much lighter. What if anything is the Zephyr mill worth? A possible plus point is that it may have been tweeked by Raymond Mays, the obvious negative is that it appears to be seized. Am I looking at weighing it in at the scrappy, or can I expect to flog it to a Zephyr fan and be able to stand a round of drinks and a fish supper?
The problem with older powerboats that used petrol car engines as their power units and marinised them, and I'm including the brutally expensive Mercruiser and Volvo units in this, is basically two fold. The first is that they ran open cooling systems, i.e. they pulled raw sea water in via a pump and this ran through the entire engine. The ensuing corrosion rate was catastrophic, particularly in a petrol engine where the ignition system promotes a high degree of electrolysis.The second is the fact that many of these engines would only run cool enough if fitted with watercooled exhaust manifolds. Very few boats used as pleasure craft are properly maintained; one of the most important issues with this being the process of winterising after use. The engines have to be completely drained of all water, especially the water cooled manifolds. If they are not, the first frost will crack them and the water runs straight into the cylinders via the exhaust ports. It lies there for the rest of the winter and the engine seizes solid.
If this has happened to your engine it will require pistons, liners, possibly a head, and a new manifold. You have to strip it right down and have everything crack tested to be sure. The corrrect thing to do with all of these power unit installations is to fit a stainless steel heat exchanger and run the cooling system with a very high concentration of anti-freeze or all year coolant mix.
A word of warning about the engine weight. This is not a car we are talking about. Your powerboat would almost certainly be designed to be stable at speed with the weight of the engine as ballast. This is VERY important. If you reduce that weight considerably, you risk making the vessel dangerously unstable when it is on the plane. Remember, boats bounce on the waves and are airborne for a split second between each wave. You have to be sure it will come back down again!!
Cheers for the constructive replies chaps.
Jith raises several important points there. You touch on the manifold issue, that is probably the biggest problem with re-powering with lightweight car diesels is the non-availability of watercooled manifolds. I would either have to heavily lag the existing manifold or fabricate a cooled manifold myself. The other problem is the non-availability of watercooled snails for small turbos; again, heavy lagging or experimenting with welding a waterjacket onto the existing snail will be required. As you point out, it would be foolhardy to not employ a freshwater cooling system with a salt/fresh intercooler, particularly given modern diesels may have alloy heads or blocks.
I have several reasons for wanting to do an engine swap; the Zephyr engine is very heavy, it's petrol and the cost and availability of spares for rebuilding it is a major concern. The ready scrapyard availability and low cost of lightweight turbodiesels like the 1.7 Isuzu, 1.9 Pug et al mean I can have the more than enough power to drive the boat, somewhat less weight(the weight loss is unlikely to be more than 100kg, about the weight of one lardy crew plus lunch, so it should not create ride/seaworthiness problems) and the reduced fire risk of diesel rather than petrol(a bilge full of petrol vapour is no joke). The smaller physical size of these engines will also allow some correction of the trim problems the design suffers from. There is also the green issue; the ford will burn 2-2.5 gallons per hour, whereas the diesels will be 1-1.5 gallons per hour at speed. The engineering problems I will have to overcome to create a successful engine swap, particularly in fabricating parts, are significant but that kind of workshop tinkering gives me jollies, so it all balances out.
I appreciate that some people value originality more, but I like boating more than maintaining boats; keeping a 50 year-old spark ignition engine running reliably in a salt water environment is not a trivial exercise.
Jith raises several important points there. You touch on the manifold issue, that is probably the biggest problem with re-powering with lightweight car diesels is the non-availability of watercooled manifolds. I would either have to heavily lag the existing manifold or fabricate a cooled manifold myself. The other problem is the non-availability of watercooled snails for small turbos; again, heavy lagging or experimenting with welding a waterjacket onto the existing snail will be required. As you point out, it would be foolhardy to not employ a freshwater cooling system with a salt/fresh intercooler, particularly given modern diesels may have alloy heads or blocks.
I have several reasons for wanting to do an engine swap; the Zephyr engine is very heavy, it's petrol and the cost and availability of spares for rebuilding it is a major concern. The ready scrapyard availability and low cost of lightweight turbodiesels like the 1.7 Isuzu, 1.9 Pug et al mean I can have the more than enough power to drive the boat, somewhat less weight(the weight loss is unlikely to be more than 100kg, about the weight of one lardy crew plus lunch, so it should not create ride/seaworthiness problems) and the reduced fire risk of diesel rather than petrol(a bilge full of petrol vapour is no joke). The smaller physical size of these engines will also allow some correction of the trim problems the design suffers from. There is also the green issue; the ford will burn 2-2.5 gallons per hour, whereas the diesels will be 1-1.5 gallons per hour at speed. The engineering problems I will have to overcome to create a successful engine swap, particularly in fabricating parts, are significant but that kind of workshop tinkering gives me jollies, so it all balances out.
I appreciate that some people value originality more, but I like boating more than maintaining boats; keeping a 50 year-old spark ignition engine running reliably in a salt water environment is not a trivial exercise.
hidetheelephants said:
Cheers for the constructive replies chaps.
Jith raises several important points there. You touch on the manifold issue, that is probably the biggest problem with re-powering with lightweight car diesels is the non-availability of watercooled manifolds. I would either have to heavily lag the existing manifold or fabricate a cooled manifold myself. The other problem is the non-availability of watercooled snails for small turbos; again, heavy lagging or experimenting with welding a waterjacket onto the existing snail will be required. As you point out, it would be foolhardy to not employ a freshwater cooling system with a salt/fresh intercooler, particularly given modern diesels may have alloy heads or blocks.
I have several reasons for wanting to do an engine swap; the Zephyr engine is very heavy, it's petrol and the cost and availability of spares for rebuilding it is a major concern. The ready scrapyard availability and low cost of lightweight turbodiesels like the 1.7 Isuzu, 1.9 Pug et al mean I can have the more than enough power to drive the boat, somewhat less weight(the weight loss is unlikely to be more than 100kg, about the weight of one lardy crew plus lunch, so it should not create ride/seaworthiness problems) and the reduced fire risk of diesel rather than petrol(a bilge full of petrol vapour is no joke). The smaller physical size of these engines will also allow some correction of the trim problems the design suffers from. There is also the green issue; the ford will burn 2-2.5 gallons per hour, whereas the diesels will be 1-1.5 gallons per hour at speed. The engineering problems I will have to overcome to create a successful engine swap, particularly in fabricating parts, are significant but that kind of workshop tinkering gives me jollies, so it all balances out.
I appreciate that some people value originality more, but I like boating more than maintaining boats; keeping a 50 year-old spark ignition engine running reliably in a salt water environment is not a trivial exercise.
I have to agree that running a petrol engined boat nowadays is a fool's game in this country: the cost is simply colossal. I would suggest a 2-litre turbo engine from a Merc Sprinter. Dead smooth, quiet, reliable and extremely economical. Built to cruise flat out all day, a mandatory requirement for a marine engine. Parts are instantly available and all the marinisation components are available from these guys :-Jith raises several important points there. You touch on the manifold issue, that is probably the biggest problem with re-powering with lightweight car diesels is the non-availability of watercooled manifolds. I would either have to heavily lag the existing manifold or fabricate a cooled manifold myself. The other problem is the non-availability of watercooled snails for small turbos; again, heavy lagging or experimenting with welding a waterjacket onto the existing snail will be required. As you point out, it would be foolhardy to not employ a freshwater cooling system with a salt/fresh intercooler, particularly given modern diesels may have alloy heads or blocks.
I have several reasons for wanting to do an engine swap; the Zephyr engine is very heavy, it's petrol and the cost and availability of spares for rebuilding it is a major concern. The ready scrapyard availability and low cost of lightweight turbodiesels like the 1.7 Isuzu, 1.9 Pug et al mean I can have the more than enough power to drive the boat, somewhat less weight(the weight loss is unlikely to be more than 100kg, about the weight of one lardy crew plus lunch, so it should not create ride/seaworthiness problems) and the reduced fire risk of diesel rather than petrol(a bilge full of petrol vapour is no joke). The smaller physical size of these engines will also allow some correction of the trim problems the design suffers from. There is also the green issue; the ford will burn 2-2.5 gallons per hour, whereas the diesels will be 1-1.5 gallons per hour at speed. The engineering problems I will have to overcome to create a successful engine swap, particularly in fabricating parts, are significant but that kind of workshop tinkering gives me jollies, so it all balances out.
I appreciate that some people value originality more, but I like boating more than maintaining boats; keeping a 50 year-old spark ignition engine running reliably in a salt water environment is not a trivial exercise.
http://www.lancingmarine.com/
I have dealt with them for years and they are great on service and advice.
If you want a more period engine go for the Merc 300 five cylinder from an old saloon.
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