Anyone thought about marinizing GM's supercharged 3800?

Hi guys, first post on the forum. I have alot of experience with General Motor's 3800 Series II motors, both the supercharged and naturally aspirated. These motors are solid and I have swapped them into cars that did not originally come with this motor. The supercharged version, known as the L67, which comes with an Eaton M90 supercharger and a HUGE array of aftermarket parts.



It would seem to me that this motor would be a prime candidate to be swapped into a marine application due to the large amounts of torque that they make; and being supercharged, would create a nice power-to-weight ratio.

At the moment, I don't have an extensive knowledge on boats in particular, but when interested in something I try to read and learn as much as I possibly can about the subject. In marinizing an automotive engine I have gathered that the starter and alternator need to have flame arresters to prevent blowing up the boat. There are other modifications that I've read about that need to be done to keep everything safe, but I won't go into detail on that just yet.

Lately I have been visualizing buying a small boat, maybe 15" or so, with a busted inboard motor, and swapping in the L67. I mainly would like to cruise around on the Tennessee River (no ocean for me) and pull people on skis, rafts, knee boards, etc.

I wonder how feasible it would be to swap this motor into a boat instead of antoher car? Does anyone have any ideas on the subject?

 

Many!

Look at the diy marinizing threads here, you´ll find most probably the answer to your questions.


Regards
Richard

 

Errr.. well I was actually wondering if anyone had thoughts about the 3800, does anyone use it?

 

commodore motor

there are a quite a few of these engines over here because what you have is the 3.8 lt holden commodore engine which is exported to gm in the us. i have seen a few fitted in boats with sterndrive legs, as long as they are freshwater cooled they work well. i think rolco in melbourne sell a marinising kit for them.