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Hoosier posted 01-06-2015 05:38 PM ET (US)
There aren't many I/O Whalers but this is interesting anyway...
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2015/01/06/ mercury-marine-introduces-new-engine-built-just-for-boats/ ?intcmp=trending
jimh posted 01-06-2015 07:54 PM ET (US)
I don't agree with the premise of that article. It says that new technologies used in GM automobile engines, like direct-injection, made them inappropriate for marine use. That makes no sense at all, and particularly for Mercury. Their OptiMax engines have been using direct injection technology for decades. Direct injection is used in the Ficht and E-TEC technologies, too.
Direct injection is now extremely common on automobile engines, which, as you know, are under greater pressure for improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions than marine engines. Improved fuel economy and reduced emissions are also goals for marine engines.
I think there may be other reasons that Mercury did not want to continue their partnership with GM for engines to be converted to marine use besides direct injection. As mentioned, the annual number of sterndrive propulsion systems being sold has dropped dramatically to about one-fifth of former volume. This means the volume of production needed for a sterndrive engine is much lower than before. The production volume may be small enough that Mercury thought it could meet demand from its own manufacturing facilities in Fond du Lac.
Recall that Brunswick shifted a lot of outboard engine production to Asia. The outboard engine below 75-HP are mostly made for them in Tohatsu's plant in Japan or in other facilities in China. That significant shift in production likely created surplus capacity in the USA. You can bet on that, because a few years ago Brunswick shut down their Stillwater, Oklahoma, facility that used to make the MerCruiser sterndrives and adapt the GM engines to marine. They seem to have been quite wise to reduce their manufacturing footprint in the USA on the basis of the big reduction in sterndrive sales.
Having had a lot of experience with marine-adaptions of GM engines, and having now been making their own four-cycle engines for over decade, Mercury's engineers probably wanted to develop their own engine rather than re-fit something from GM. Also, with automobile engines trending toward smaller displacement, there may not have been a GM engine of suitable displacement. Most of these modern automobile engines tend toward turbo-charging. Turbo-charging is not a good solution in marine engines because their exhaust is usually water cooled and very wet.
There must have also been a strong case financially for making this new sterndrive engine. I suspect the investment in design and manufacturing was large, and it will take a long time for payback from increased margins and profits to offset the expense. Look into the Brunswick financials for details.
Hoosier posted 01-06-2015 08:28 PM ET (US)
I think where Mercury is trying to go is "Back to the Future", to an engine that's "workonable"; something that the reasonably competent mariner can get into, if he has to, without a million dollars worth of specialized equipment. In reading the article to says pushrod, not electronic valve control, two valves per cylinder, not four, designed for a two function transmission, etc.. Also, since it's a purpose built marine engine, it escapes much to the EPA rules that apply to automotive engines. I wish them success, someone's got the color outside the lines....
kwik_wurk posted 01-06-2015 08:58 PM ET (US)
Well this also give Mercury control of the aftermarket service as well. Which nowadays is equally important as first point of sale. -- No more getting cheap automotive parts to make the thing run (not that I endorse non-marine components on boats).
However I can say that after having 5.7l I/O's, which I loved (decent fuel economy, great power, super easy to find information on) but absolutely hated physically working on. Getting the spark plugs off was always a challenge (usually shattered one), and the starter was best looked at with an extension mirror. -- Now an stern drive itself is a different animal, and hated the concept of that big hole that could be ripped open with a bad bellows, or worst case a dead-head strike.
jimh posted 01-06-2015 09:37 PM ET (US)
The new engine in the Fox News article is not particularly new, as it was mentioned about six months ago. Marine writer Charles Plueddeman wrote about it in July, 2014. See
http://features.boats.com/boat-content/2014/07/ new-mercruiser-4-5l-v6-promises-v8-performance/
Plueddeman knows a lot more about the marine engine business than Fox News. His comment on the impetus for the new design:

quote:
Mercury is confronting the reality that its inboard engine supplier, GM Powertrain, may soon be discontinuing some of the affordable base engines it has offered for years.

(Emphasis added.)
I also wonder if GM would hand off to Mercury the engine control unit algorithms needed to get maximum performance from the engine. I think in the past when Mercury got a GM block, that's what they got--the block. Mercury developed its own engine controllers. Writing an engine controller for direct injection may not have been in their skill set.
dgoodhue posted 01-06-2015 09:46 PM ET (US)
The 4.3 V6 that [Mercruiser] has been using for long time has been out of automobile production for about 10 years and was being phased out 15 years ago. The subsequent replacement motors are both changing regularly and using aluminum parts. The 4.3 is also dated. The small block Chevy has changed four generations in the last 22 years. It might be more cost effective to create their own updated design that they can control.
Mercury Racing created their own engines already for the 1100 and 1350. Previously the big horsepower performance motors were always based [on the big-block Chevy engine].
jimh posted 01-07-2015 08:39 AM ET (US)
Automotive engine manufacturing does seem to be trending toward shorter product lifespans. In the past you would see a particular engine being used for decades. Perhaps because of modern design methods and modern manufacturing methods, creating a entirely new engine design and putting it into production seems to be more common.
I am sure that the Mercruiser engine that Brunswick has designed is a good product, and it just seems smart to design it from the start to have all the features you want in a marine engine, like filters, pumps, alternators, and so on that are located for optimum utility in a marine environment. But the Fox News article was off-base declaring direct-injection to have no value in marine applications.
For Brunswick's stockholders sake, I do hope this new sterndrive engine is more successful than the previous new Mercruiser sterndrive engine, the VAZER. The VAZER apparently quietly disappeared from the Mercruiser line not very long after it was introduced.
Cf.: http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/005613.html

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Author	Topic: New Inboard Engine from Mercury Marine
Hoosier	posted 01-06-2015 05:38 PM ET (US) There aren't many I/O Whalers but this is interesting anyway... http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2015/01/06/ mercury-marine-introduces-new-engine-built-just-for-boats/ ?intcmp=trending
jimh	posted 01-06-2015 07:54 PM ET (US) I don't agree with the premise of that article. It says that new technologies used in GM automobile engines, like direct-injection, made them inappropriate for marine use. That makes no sense at all, and particularly for Mercury. Their OptiMax engines have been using direct injection technology for decades. Direct injection is used in the Ficht and E-TEC technologies, too. Direct injection is now extremely common on automobile engines, which, as you know, are under greater pressure for improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions than marine engines. Improved fuel economy and reduced emissions are also goals for marine engines. I think there may be other reasons that Mercury did not want to continue their partnership with GM for engines to be converted to marine use besides direct injection. As mentioned, the annual number of sterndrive propulsion systems being sold has dropped dramatically to about one-fifth of former volume. This means the volume of production needed for a sterndrive engine is much lower than before. The production volume may be small enough that Mercury thought it could meet demand from its own manufacturing facilities in Fond du Lac. Recall that Brunswick shifted a lot of outboard engine production to Asia. The outboard engine below 75-HP are mostly made for them in Tohatsu's plant in Japan or in other facilities in China. That significant shift in production likely created surplus capacity in the USA. You can bet on that, because a few years ago Brunswick shut down their Stillwater, Oklahoma, facility that used to make the MerCruiser sterndrives and adapt the GM engines to marine. They seem to have been quite wise to reduce their manufacturing footprint in the USA on the basis of the big reduction in sterndrive sales. Having had a lot of experience with marine-adaptions of GM engines, and having now been making their own four-cycle engines for over decade, Mercury's engineers probably wanted to develop their own engine rather than re-fit something from GM. Also, with automobile engines trending toward smaller displacement, there may not have been a GM engine of suitable displacement. Most of these modern automobile engines tend toward turbo-charging. Turbo-charging is not a good solution in marine engines because their exhaust is usually water cooled and very wet. There must have also been a strong case financially for making this new sterndrive engine. I suspect the investment in design and manufacturing was large, and it will take a long time for payback from increased margins and profits to offset the expense. Look into the Brunswick financials for details.
Hoosier	posted 01-06-2015 08:28 PM ET (US) I think where Mercury is trying to go is "Back to the Future", to an engine that's "workonable"; something that the reasonably competent mariner can get into, if he has to, without a million dollars worth of specialized equipment. In reading the article to says pushrod, not electronic valve control, two valves per cylinder, not four, designed for a two function transmission, etc.. Also, since it's a purpose built marine engine, it escapes much to the EPA rules that apply to automotive engines. I wish them success, someone's got the color outside the lines....
kwik_wurk	posted 01-06-2015 08:58 PM ET (US) Well this also give Mercury control of the aftermarket service as well. Which nowadays is equally important as first point of sale. -- No more getting cheap automotive parts to make the thing run (not that I endorse non-marine components on boats). However I can say that after having 5.7l I/O's, which I loved (decent fuel economy, great power, super easy to find information on) but absolutely hated physically working on. Getting the spark plugs off was always a challenge (usually shattered one), and the starter was best looked at with an extension mirror. -- Now an stern drive itself is a different animal, and hated the concept of that big hole that could be ripped open with a bad bellows, or worst case a dead-head strike.
jimh	posted 01-06-2015 09:37 PM ET (US) The new engine in the Fox News article is not particularly new, as it was mentioned about six months ago. Marine writer Charles Plueddeman wrote about it in July, 2014. See http://features.boats.com/boat-content/2014/07/ new-mercruiser-4-5l-v6-promises-v8-performance/ Plueddeman knows a lot more about the marine engine business than Fox News. His comment on the impetus for the new design: quote: Mercury is confronting the reality that its inboard engine supplier, GM Powertrain, may soon be discontinuing some of the affordable base engines it has offered for years. (Emphasis added.) I also wonder if GM would hand off to Mercury the engine control unit algorithms needed to get maximum performance from the engine. I think in the past when Mercury got a GM block, that's what they got--the block. Mercury developed its own engine controllers. Writing an engine controller for direct injection may not have been in their skill set.
dgoodhue	posted 01-06-2015 09:46 PM ET (US) The 4.3 V6 that [Mercruiser] has been using for long time has been out of automobile production for about 10 years and was being phased out 15 years ago. The subsequent replacement motors are both changing regularly and using aluminum parts. The 4.3 is also dated. The small block Chevy has changed four generations in the last 22 years. It might be more cost effective to create their own updated design that they can control. Mercury Racing created their own engines already for the 1100 and 1350. Previously the big horsepower performance motors were always based [on the big-block Chevy engine].
jimh	posted 01-07-2015 08:39 AM ET (US) Automotive engine manufacturing does seem to be trending toward shorter product lifespans. In the past you would see a particular engine being used for decades. Perhaps because of modern design methods and modern manufacturing methods, creating a entirely new engine design and putting it into production seems to be more common. I am sure that the Mercruiser engine that Brunswick has designed is a good product, and it just seems smart to design it from the start to have all the features you want in a marine engine, like filters, pumps, alternators, and so on that are located for optimum utility in a marine environment. But the Fox News article was off-base declaring direct-injection to have no value in marine applications. For Brunswick's stockholders sake, I do hope this new sterndrive engine is more successful than the previous new Mercruiser sterndrive engine, the VAZER. The VAZER apparently quietly disappeared from the Mercruiser line not very long after it was introduced. Cf.: http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/005613.html