700hp @3000rpm 1500tq 12v diesel

Go for it. I think youre on the right path. Keep us posted with pics of the build. BBC's are bad azz, but diesels are unstoppable. With time maybe you'll be able to ligten parts on it.
 
I would look into a sequential turbo setup or a twin set up with a small initial turbo. And 900 hp duramax on efi live only???? Sounds like a record to me lol
 
1000 hp is nice but not if it takes 5 miles to spool the turbo and make the power. you can't hold the brake like the truck in the video and spool it up. you'll have to start injecting water to cool the EGT.
 
New so you gentaleman bear with me as i'm just relaying science that i found regarding diesel engines and air boats. Wiegh is the biggest concern. But with the torque levels a smaller diesel is always the way to go. A 4bt is the starting point. Whenyou start putting superchargers on big blocks even with expensive aluminum heads is going to be near 800 pounds. When you ask a bigblock to produce some of the torgue numbers i'm seeing the engine hours and reliability go down. The most important engine caractistic is reliability. The diesel will be more than capable in the same power range to last 4 times as long as the bbc , sbc, or aircraft. Yes to those of you who think expensive aircraft engines designed in the 40's is the answer sorry they dont hold up in a mondern world against a diesel. So the 4 bt can produce the same power ratings, half the fuel ,red or biofuels , and last 4 times as long at half or a third the price of a bbc( with aluminum heads ) ,or aircraft Expenses. Now the geardrive. The diesels that i played with worked large water pumps. As the load increaded the power from the turbo increased. I would suggest useing a new belt design that loads the diesel ealier making good use of turbo system designed for other uses such as road or industial use. The gear ratio would be oposite the sbc. Instead of a 2 to 1 it would be a 1 to 2. A large intercooler cooler ( or 2 ) cooled by the prop would bring exuast tempts down to managable and increase boost and low end torque. Please dont take offense to any of this as im trying a scientific approach to answering the question of modern airboat building. I've seen a 4bt in a mud dragger that is pushing 800 hp at 1600 ft tq, This can be seen at indiana clutch i believe. The 4bt wieghs in around 700 puonds. I've seen 4 bt's used in industial, marine , and delivery trucks some with more than 10,000 hrs. Fluid damper makes a harmonic balancer for the 6bt and the 4bt that takes all but a very little vibrations out of the diesel experience. Also an inline four will put the wiegh better over the center of the boat making for a better handling boat.
If you want to use a 6 bt you can drop the engine in a belt drive and use a longer belt. It's a supercharger belt and longer ones are availible. The pulley size stays the same although i would pull on the turbo ealier with a pulley change reversing the the ratio. The harder you pull on a turbocharged diesel the harder it pulls back. Just my 2 cents worth. I've built all the auto engines for airboats and also air cooled vw as well. and i'm convinced a diesel is the wave of the future for air boats and swampbuggies. I have a new design for swampbuggies useing 4 cylinder vw diesel
front wheel drive turn sideways in the middle of the buggie. hopfully testing will begin late august in south florida.
 
granted i'm just yankee up here in wisconsin but i did build a duramax boat and it works great. can run dry any where. gets twice the fuel economy of my bbc. only real big mod was a big single turbo and tuned it with efi live. egt's are fine. does 50mph with 3 wide blades maxed out on pitch. jumps out of the hole quickly on a big 18x8 hull with a big grass rake. did my learning from the pulling guys who abuse the snot out of these things. yes, if you want to make more than 600hp you have to do some internal work and fuel delivery upgrades etc.

it does work and i'm not rich, an engineer, or an airboat guru. just a guy who did the homework and made it work
 
That great you got good running Diesel but I seriously doubt it will run dry any where. I have yet to see one run dry half way descent across hard ground yet.
 
dont really give a sh!t if u believe it or not. i have nothing to prove and i'm not selling anything. youtube "duamax aiboat hill". thats the boat running up sticky wet sand hill. that was before bigger turbo and 100hp smaller tune. i run the snot out of the boat in canada duckhunting and 99% of the time i dont have a boat ramp. just dump it in a field, fill it with gear dogs and hunters and drive across a field until i hit the cattails.
 
you call bullsh!t on someone. they show you video proof and your response is whatever dude. a perfect case of it's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot rather to open and remove all doubt.
 
duckyager said:
you call bullsh!t on someone. they show you video proof and your response is whatever dude. a perfect case of it's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot rather to open and remove all doubt.
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Saw your video :lol: if you think that was supposeto be impressive you're the idiot. Heck a dd boat could do that. What you dont understand is that boat will not go just any where. Thank you for not giving a shiit and removing all doubt what an idiot you are. :lol:
 
Duckyager, what kind of fuel efficiency improvement are you seeing with a heavy load over your big block?

Keep the diesel experiments coming. This is probably the future for those of us who use the boats to hunt with. Ie: larger boats with a lot of weight and a couple hundred gallons of gas to get anywhere.
 
i didn't checked it with a load. i looked at it with a fairly empty boat, same as when i had checked with the gaser on it, apples to apples. it was about double. now, like anything else i'm sure that advantage would go away as you put your foot in it. but then if you ran a gaser upwords of 600hp and 900+ ft lbs you would obviously be buying stock in exon as well. one of the advantages other than being a more efficient engine is the torque curve. in deep water it will hold on plane at a little over 2k and in skiny water less then 1.5k. other nice byproduct is it's allot quieter. one of the biggest challenges other than the electrical/computer part was keeping the egt's down. i'm a fireman by trade and a rooky welder. i made my own up pipes that took a gazzilion man hours and used some other parts recommended by the pulling guys. all geared toward letting it breath better. i would be more than happy to answer any and all questions about anything i've done to get to this point. it's been a fun project. next step will be to add another blade and maybe some bigger injectors so i can back off on the injection pulse duration. don't need much more power, i know that's crazy talk, but always looking at anything i can do to increase reliability.
 
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