in-line 6 Cylinder Engines, 'straight-six'

Rubbish -- I know of no one that does not carry tools. I have a workshop on my boat --the whole crews quarters is dedicated to repairing anything,

My car has a bag of tools under the seat and so does my bike .

What you should have said is not many people know how to repair anything anymore

 

Three times I've been forced to call help or postpone start becouse of engine problem I could not solve myself. Twice with modern computer controlled commonrail, just refused to start.. without any obvious reason. Once with old diesel when waterpump broke down.. Which can happen to any engine, modern or not..

 

As much as I appreciate the quieteness and efficiency of full ecu diesels-has anyone priced out a new piezo injector?

In coastal areas you are fine,but if going to remote areas how much will one need to spend for spare sensors,controllers,etc?

It's not like when the engine quits it's a 99.5% chance the fuel filter is plugged,and your own fault.
Unless you have diagnostics try finding which microscopic resistor on which computer chip in which module has burnt out and hopefully you have a spare module while in Kiribati.

 

i am no fan of electronics but i can't deny the reliability of them. the point i was making is the fact that ecu's prevent engine damage which is a great thing. 20 years ago if my truck overheated crawling up a hill or ran low on coolant or oil the engine sustained major damage, these days a light flashs on the dash and shuts the engine down before damage occurs. i understand shutdown is not ideal for marine applications. ie: when crossing a sandbar entrance. but ecu will set off alarm and derate the engine output so you can limp into port. if you can afford a new diesel and a long range cruise you can also afford to carry a spare ecu . i hardly see any injector failure but have had ecu's fail but they are plug and play. we have a cummins 370 m11 that is nearly up to 4 million km, its had a couple of in chassis rebuilds but the electronics are original. this is a very early electronic engine, the latest ones are much better. turbo's and waste gate actuators are the most common parts we change.

 

Of course now,if you can afford it's fine..but what about 10-15-20 years down the road as a used boat for someone.

The early stuff is fine-but a direct or nearby lightning strike,even with a properly protected boat, is trouble.

Few years ago I saw stats for US boat damage via lightning and it was a lot of money..

 

I wont have anything on my boat I cant fix, replace or do without.

I dont have a cost guard service or RNLI or a 999 call service;

I dont even have confidence in an EPIRB in this area

I go out on my own and expect to return.

I will buy what I need to do this.

 

In some areas (like Florida) the chance of a lightning side strike are high .

Some days there are 2000-3000 lightning strikes , and the summer is long.

I would not ever consider an electric injected ECU engine as no matter how well a Faraday Cage for the engine room is built , Stuff happens!

While the quiet of the modern multi injection engines , and the fuel efficiency is somewhat better ,

the danger of sound of SILENCE from the engine room after an electrical problem far outweighs weather the engine burns a bit less fuel.

FF

 

Singapore is the same --its an easy place to take a picture of a lightening strike.

I had a cheif engineer freind on a big super yacht -he had to fix everything and was expected to no questions.

He showed me the Caterpilar manual that went through all the checks for a non start situation . If all the above are not succesful call your nearest Caterpillar service center.

Hello -er --yes this is; MV Dumbest; my engine wont start, yes Im 300 miles off Malaysia just north of Sumatra in a bad electrical storm.

Yes the Cat gens are down too, no stabalizers now and can not haul anchor --mayday mayday this is .....MV -------------interference ---(batteries flat)

 

With a bunch of guys in speedboats approaching at a high rate of speed...not the coast guard.

 

Bit of a sidetrack here...

I've seen the Jeep straight six mentioned in this thread. Has anyone had any experience with the 225 cid V6 option that Kaiser offered, before American Motors bought them out and started offering the inline sixes instead?

It was a 90-degree V6 instead of a 120.... basically a chopped-off Buick Dauntless v8. With the help of a heavy flywheel and the double-punch, odd-fire firing order, it has a surprising amount of low-end torque for its size. I have one in my CJ5, and wouldn't trade it for any other engine But I have to admit it isn't famous for gas mileage....

The tooling was eventually sold back to GM, and became the 231 v6. The 231 used a lighter flywheel, dumped the odd-fire, and got a bad rap for being underpowered because of all the smog crap they had to hang on it.

What I mean by double-punch on the odd-fire 225 is that each pair of pistons fires 90 degrees apart, then the engine rotates 270 degrees and the next pair fires. It puts a 'lope' in the engine, like a Harley motorcycle engine has (potato, potato, potato....).

I was out replacing the carburetor on my CJ5 one day, and when I fired it up my busybody neighbor came over and offered to tune that 'hitch' (as he called it) out of the engine for me. He brought a 12-pack of Budweiser with him, so I didn't argue. I just stood around drinking beer, until he finally gave up.

 

I know there was a marine version of that 225. I think it was a 160 horse or so- can't remember the name.

Your version of firing isn't exactly right..there's different orders of harmonics.

I can explain it,but the simplest:for a V6 to be smoothest it has to be a 60,120 or the best-180 (flat like Porsche) degrees between the V and firing every 120 degrees.
The Buick is 90.

The lope you talk about is a fire-then 90 to another-then 150 to another- then 90-then 150 etc etc instead of 120-120-120-120 etc

In the 3800 they introduced offset crank pins to "fool" the engine into behaving like a 60 degree,and added a balance shaft.


Wiki should have a v6 engine page.

 

Troy is not a mechanic --any way why do you have a tooth brush as an avatar.

 

Those odd fire V-6 jeeps were fun to drive, man it's been quite a while ago for me. The GMC V-6s had that lope too and were prone to blowing smoke rings out the exhaust at idle.

 

Frosty it's a bacon toothbrush

 

I remember those 231 buick's as OMC marinised them as stern drives..weird as the odd fire engine.
Then Merc brough out both odd and even fire chev v6's
I would have preferred they marinised the DOHC 6 ( atlas vortec)