A friend of mine has recently bought a fishing boat that has 2x 200hp Mariner outboards and they looked very compact like a V bike engine.

Anyone have any thoughts to wether they could be used?

The exhaust is part of the cooling system so thats the biggest problem.......gearbox is another.....

What the weight of these engines I know someone who used outboard engines in karts but unsure on gearbox.

There must be a shaft or something like a bike so i'm sure it can be done.

No reason why they couldnt be used. But you would need to make up some rather special manifolds and cooling system for them.

The are fairly light, for how much power they kick out.

I am also assuming they are 4 stroke...most of the new ones are, a lot of the old ones are not however!

David

Many years ago I built a go kart, and installed the power head from a British Anzani two cylinder two stroke, water cooled, outboard motor. Went like the wind, a real screamer, seventy down the straight with only one gear.

we have our very owned marine engined car , i mean err B230 engine right here .


most marine engines have vehicle derivatives , if you give me the name and model number of it , i can say for sure what it came out of .

the advantage of a marine engine (listen very carefully) is they dont have an engine number so guess what that means.

a lot of the penta marine engines are volvo car engines - or yanky V6 or V8 rebadged stuff , i can get volvo penta rocker covers for a small block chevy .

the advantage of marine engines - is that they are more likely to run at continous speed , than accel decel, and have no emissions crap so run very clean , the only downside is corrosion , and maybe weight ( car derived)

the 4 penta engines i have have very little wear mechanically , have much stronger cranks(and larger capacity) , so if you can work out what they are , you stand a good chance of mounting it to a decent gearbox .

And I've got some water skis in the loft , you could ski to Tesco's on Mondays..........

My uncle had a Ski Nautique made by mastercraft had the Ford 289 (4.7ltr) V8 from a mustang, was a lovely sounding engine although slightly different to the car as it was normally at constant revs and at full chat the exhuasts were under the water. I know a bloke who had the same engine in his Shelby Mustang GT350, gotta say it sounded better in the car!

Shame he sold the boat whole as i said i would have the engine from him if he couldnt sell it!

[Edited on 26/11/05 by greggors84]