Engine hours

[Cam]

I have a friend who has an ex Ski School boat with approaching 5,500 hours, he has had it around 10 years but now it is down on power.

The boat has ran on LPG all of it's life and he is talking about going down the route of getting a new gas system fitted but I am thinking he maybe wasting his money on an engine with so many hours and a sketchy service history in his ownership.

Anyone have any experience on how long these engines last? I am guessing it is the equivalent of 275,000 mile on a car.

The boat is a 2008 196 with a 5.7.

 

[Mastercrafter]

I think that engine has paid its dues and owes him nothing. However, 5.7's/parts/labor are a dime a dozen and he could get the longblock replaced or rebuilt, and keep going another 5k hours. Then worry about the gas system.

 

For what it's worth the next highest hour ski boat engine I've seen is a 2008 Prostar 214 with 4700 hours, 5.7 as well. Pretty impressive. Paying $2500 for a long block rebuild, $0.50 USD/hr for the engine is awesome.

 

 

[BraceMaker]

I usually take the opinion of if you've maintained it and it has compression and it has oil pressure then it is proof tested and I'd go ahead and keep running it.

 

 

[jjackkrash]

5500 is a lot of hours for a marine gas engine. It is tough to say how much life it has got left but you can't bank on it running for ever. It is going to need a repower at some point.

[swbca]

In addition to the 5500 hours on the engine, do the marine transmissions have a finite service life ?

[Fast351]

My rule of thumb (I didn't come up with it, but got it from someone I trust) is add two zeroes to get equivalent car miles. That's 550,000 miles. That engine is done. I will echo what others are saying and just drop in a long block.

 

[chrislandy]

@Mastercrafter if he's running it on LPG it probably means he is in the UK or Europe.

 

5.5k in the UK is not much TBH for a ski school boat, I've heard of 10k+ boats still running.

 

5.7 parts are megabucks over here, there is a good place down in Horsham near London that builds from scratch (retired Aston Martin engine builder) he built my 5.7 a few years ago and I got 330-360hp long block.

 

with the performance issues on LPG, firstly which system is it running? Secondly, when was it last serviced? The vaporisor gets gummed up with sludge and the injectors or carb diaphragm can get damaged / degrade.

[gsm_peter]

How long does old gas tanks last?

In Sweden, tanks (and the gas system) has to be replaced in cars after x years due to safety.

Ok. There are high and low pressure systems and I do not know if there are similar rules?

Personally, I am affraid of old corroded gas systems...

[A_B]

Plastic gas tank? Hoses and fittings not exposed to sunlight should not be a worry.

Drivetrain and hull integrity would be my only other concerns.

We have an 07 SN with 1200 hours and it still runs plenty strong. The wakes and tracking are all anyone would want for the price. No fancy dashboard but I have one of those in my Escalade.

[Cam]

@gsm_peter you are correct all fittings and tanks should be tested and recertified after 10 years that is why I am not getting involved with any work on the boat as I am also afraid of old gas systems.

@A_B Metal tank holding LPG not gasoline.

[A_B]

Gotcha. We don’t have any LPG boats around these parts! They design underground propane tanks to last for 30 years or more.

[chrislandy]

Not sure why someone disagreed with what I said, just stating facts this side of the Atlantic. High hours boats are not uncommon here and usually well maintained.

 

A friend of mine has a 2014 old carbon pro with nearly 4k hours on it as a ski school and runs sweet as the day it was delivered. My old 205 was an ex ski school boat, 2 years old and 2k on the clock.

 

A poorly setup LPG system with take years (and thousands of hours off an engine - hence the bad rep) but a well setup and maintained system will outlast the same engine on gas/petrol.

 

I had mine converted to LPG by a well respected company whose work came highly recommended from many people, it was crap, the engine was down to at least half power. I set it up properly and got more power and a sweeter running engine out of it than it ever did on petrol.

[BraceMaker]

@chrislandy people in the US dont realize how much fuel ends up wet in the cylinders washing out and blowing by the rings and the contamination of the oil that cimes with it.

 

LPG just keeps the cylinders clean and dry and prevents that washdown. Huge difference.

 

 

[S1Pitts]

I am curious and wondering about how you fill the tanks on LPG. Removable tanks? Pull from the water and trailer to filling station? Portable filling stations?

Our fuel prices are expecting to almost double this coming year. Thinking about options.

[chrislandy]

@S1Pitts the tank is permanently fixed to the boat, typically replacing the fuel tank at the rear or in some cases infront of the observer seat or under the bow.

 

A connector is typically fitted in the side or rear of the boat (mine replaced the petrol filler perfectly as I went pure LPG rather than dual fuel)

 

To fill, simply drive up to your filling station be it at the lakeside or trailer to the filling station, connect the hose and press a button. No carrying gas cans from the car down to the lake, no fuel spills, no having to run down the petrol station on a sunday afternoon when you run out of fuel wasting an hour or two of precious ski time etc...

 

We have a permanent tank mounted at the lakeside which sends levels back to the supplier who come out and fill up once it reaches a certain level. I believe we had to pay to put the base in and power supply, but we rent the tank from the LPG supplier for a very small amount each 1/4 (so if we changed supplier then they would swap out the tank)

 

If you have many boats using it, you can have a meter fitted to log use and makes billing back to the user easier, these can use RFI or PIN for ID. Our lake has just a few boats so we use an "honour" system where we just write in a log when we filled up.

 

There are also a load of filling stations that use AutoGAS, but these seem to be reducing in numbers at the moment in the UK, but still widely available in the EU.

 

For us, when petrol is the equivalent of $10/ US gal or 1.8-2 Euro a litre compared to $2/gal or 0.5Euro/l, it's a no brainer.

 

(slightly wobbling into the electric thread) IF H2 fuel cell EB's come about and take off then it will end up being a similar setup.

 

Safety wise, on every setup I've seen here in the UK, each hose has an electronic solenoid valve to isolate when the engine isn't running (thats the filler hose to tank, and tank to vaporiser so isolates the tank completely. The tank has a sealed box where all the fittings penetrate the tank wall which is vented out the side of the boat. IMO it's a safer setup than petrol.

[S1Pitts]

@chrislandy Petrol here is running around $5USD per US gallon and that's the low grade. Add another $1.50/gal for high test. If it doubles as expected then we are right there with you.

I have never seen a boat here that has been set up for LPG and there are not too many autos using it either. Perhaps once the prices rise we will see it become more common providing the cost of conversion is reasonable and LPG does not follow petrol in price.

I also wonder about converting an engine that has seen 500+hrs on gasoline? if it would be detrimental to the health of the engine?

[Jody_Seal]

 

2100 hours out of a 94 hydrodyne. You can eat off of it!

 

 

Its fir sale by the way! The engine and transmission!

 

Repower!

 

 

 

 

[chrislandy]

@S1Pitts it depends on the which engine to which conversion you do, but as long as the engine is good to begin with, it should be OK - LPG will show a weakness in the ignition if there is one as it needs a but more spark to work and you need to run iridium plugs.

 

It's a well trodden path in the UK, new boats, old boats etc... the bad stories normally come from either poor conversions or the engine was on its last legs already.

 

On my old boat (below) I removed the TBI bits (throttle body, injectors etc) leaving the ECU for basically ignition control. I used an Impco 425 mixer with a holly 4 barrel throttle plate and the Innovate TPS (spliced into the old TPS loom). In hindsight I probably should have junked the ECU control and replaced the dizzy with an MSD e-curve or ready to run marine as it would have cleaned the engine bay up nicely and simplified things - it I'd kept it, I would have done it this winter.

 

 

My current boat uses a "prins" system which is LPG injection rather than mixer/carb and runs duel fuel.

 

feel free to message me on converting so we don't clog up this thread!