supercharged verado

[yipster]

recently saw on tv that decades back in formula 1 car racing 1500 cubic centimeter supercharged motors deliverd 1500 hp before they were banned while two times that volume natural aspired 3 liter formula 1 engines today produce about 800 hp. thats a lot of difference and now there is mercury's verado, worlds first supercharged outboard.

apart from the 20K price (than again 100 milion R&D went in) and the strange lettering i'd say its a star.

real star ofcourse is the supercharger

[Corpus Skipper]

YEEEEEEEEEHAWWWWW!!!! I'll take two, please

[tom28571]

Yipster, I may be wrong, but I'd check that TV for ingesting banned substances.

1500Hp from 1500cc?

That's 1500HP from 90 cubic inches, or 16.7HP per cu in!!!

Most people are happy with 1hp per cu in. Must be a really good supercharger.

[Frans X L]

The 1500hp was the BMW qualifying engine that lasted exactly one lap. In race trim the turbo engines got about 800hp reliably. You could turn up the boost to overtake, but do it too long and you blow up the motor.

Any one have any news on reliability of the new mercury engine. This thing sounds very complex for a weekend boater to use.

[Suede]

It´s "only" 275 HP out of 2,6 liters (158 CID) so it´s not "overpowered" compared to the race-engines.
By the way, most efficient non-charged engine is the GP 500 cc motorcycles...around 200 HP...makes 400 HP /liter....but it might be a little itchy to cruise around at 20.000 rpm.

[Willallison]

Frans is correct in summation about the F1 engines. Most teams managed to pull in excess of 1000hp from their 1.5L turbocaharged engines, in qualifying trim. These days, around 800 - 900hp from a 3L naturally aspirated can be expected from the top-line teams. This is more a result of implementation of power-limiting rules than anything else - the size of the air intake, for example is very tightly regulated. The main game of the FIA rule-makers is to slow the cars down - yet each year the cars just get faster and faster....

As for the Verado - lets hope thay've got it right - otherwise Mercury might go the same way as OMC - then they'd be completey Ficht !!

[yipster]

thanks for the feedback guy's, can only agree with you all

[Suede]

Turbos/chargers are normally not so dangerous to the engine. The maximum load on the engine parts is at the upper and lower ends,
when the piston stops and change direction. At ignition at top-dead-center only about 20% of the extra gas has ignited,
so the extra load is quite small. The extra gas will extend the explosion/expansion when the piston travels down,
creating more power, but the load on the parts are fairly small during this cycle, compared to the max load at TDC.
And Merc has top rpm 6000+ so it seems pretty fair to me....wait ´til the aftermark "charger-preps" comes along....
there is probably a lot of potential power left in there....
So if done right it doesn´t have to kill the engine faster than normal, on the other hand, HP turbo engines has often
been driven more "sporty" than other veichels.....this might kill the engine faster anyway.
nice engine concept...thanx Yipster...
rgds
O

[hmattos]

F1 engines have two main advantages over outboards for leisure users. - they cost up to a million dollars a piece and they only have to last for qualifying laps plus the one race! Few of us can afford those costs for our boats. We run Suzuki four strokes and Evinrude and Mercury two strokes. The Suzukis are quiet and beuatifully engineered, but a bit sluggish at the bottom end, The Evinrudes have a sporty roar and have electrifying mid range performance, and the Optimaxes sound like coffee grinders. Our five Evinrudes have up to 300 hours each and we have changed the plugs and filters!

Time will tell whether the Verado has been tested thoroughly!

Hugh Mattos

[Willallison]

LOL - I must admit, at low revs the Optimax's aren't exactly music to the ears (we run a pair of 225's), but they are extraordinarily economical and have imense grunt...

[Corpus Skipper]

(we run a pair of 225's), but they are extraordinarily economical and have imense grunt...

Howdy Will, can you give us an example of that economy? What sort of boat, weight, speed, sea conditions,.....? I need to get some range out of my boat, @#*$!! billfish insist on hanging out 50-90 miles offshore here. I know diesel is the ultimate, especially mated to a stern drive, but my boat lives in the water, so until Volvo gets those composite drives sorted out, I'm left with inboard or outboard. Prices are about the same for either, so It's a matter of fuel economy that'll pick a winner.

[Willallison]

Originally Posted by Corpus Skipper

Howdy Will, can you give us an example of that economy? What sort of boat, weight, speed, sea conditions,.....? I need to get some range out of my boat, @#*$!! billfish insist on hanging out 50-90 miles offshore here. I know diesel is the ultimate, especially mated to a stern drive, but my boat lives in the water, so until Volvo gets those composite drives sorted out, I'm left with inboard or outboard. Prices are about the same for either, so It's a matter of fuel economy that'll pick a winner.

Boat is a 26ft deep-vee (a 23ft Formula + pod). Very heavy at around 3 tons dry. At trolling speed (8 - 10 knots) on one engine, consumption is 14 lph (the old 200's we had used 40 lph at the same speed!) At speed, total consumption is between 2 & 3 litres per nautical mile, thats running at between 35 and 45 knots.

Many will extoll the virtues of 4-stroke ob's - and indeed compared to the older generation of 2-strokes they are a world ahead. But in every test that I've read (I'm talking big motors here) the direct-injection 2-strokes outperform the 4-strokes in terms of economy, response and outright performance. Where the 4-strokes win hands down is in the noise level department - at least at slow speeds. Whether the new Verado alters that balance, time will no doubt tell....

[Corpus Skipper]

Thanks for the quick reply Will, that definitely sounds like they give diesel a run for the money.

[Willallison]

Originally Posted by Corpus Skipper

Thanks for the quick reply Will, that definitely sounds like they give diesel a run for the money.

...I've had that argument before - so I'm not going down that road again, but yes, we are happy with the fuel consumption. Incidentally, 3 L/nm would be with the boat heavily laden and running hard in a slop, we'd generally see closer to 2. At displacement speeds (which for our boat is around 5 - 6 knots) we manage better than 6 nmpg...

...another thought though...you can buy a LOT of fuel for the 50K (thats what they cost here in AUD) that a pair of new ob's cost.... if you need the extra range, well, that might be a different matter

[hmattos]

Pleased to hear so actual numbers being posted. As a comparison we ran an all day photoshoot with a pair or RIBs. The camera boat had an OLD tech Mercury 90 hp two stroke,the sales boat had a HIGH TECH DIRECT INJECTION TWO STROKE 225 hp. Even though the 225 was doing all the fast runs and covered twice the distance, it was the 90 hp which finished each 25 litre tank first!

As for diesels - two issues here. Diesels will last much longer since they are engineered as commercial products. An outboard is a leisure product and is lucky to last 2000 hours. A diesel may well be going strong after 20000 hours if serviced properly. In England, petrol is 81 pence per litre, but we may use RED diesel in boats at 32 pence per litre - makes a big difference. Hugh Mattos