If you were starting all over, would you buy a Hatt with DD engines again??

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Originally Posted by zigzag930

What??? I love the smell of DD"s in the morning, LOL

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Nothing better than the starting howl and the smell of a good Detroit in the morning.
Reminds me of victory..

BTW; my 45 year old DDs run great.

A note on electronics. A guy in my marina had a new boat, don't remember the what engines, but it had an electronic engine module go. $12k for new module. Just sayin.

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Originally Posted by Bob Quinn

A note on electronics. A guy in my marina had a new boat, don't remember the what engines, but it had an electronic engine module go. $12k for new module. Just sayin.

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Had a failed ECU on a C32 about 3 years ago it was only $4k and available overnight. My MTU mechanic told me he s waiting for a 16V2000 ECU for a boat hit by lightning… 3 months so far and $40k+

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Originally Posted by Pascal

Had a failed ECU on a C32 about 3 years ago it was only $4k and available overnight. My MTU mechanic told me he s waiting for a 16V2000 ECU for a boat hit by lightning… 3 months so far and $40k+

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I used to fish Marsh harbor for the month of June one year there was a mega yacht there at the end dock got talking to the crew. It had a a dead engine management computer in the MTU’s and they had be stranded for over a month. They still had charters flying in and entertaining them by running their intrepid to the local islands

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Originally Posted by Captain Ralph

BTW; my 45 year old DDs run great.

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Mine are 57 years old and purr like kittens, very loud kittens. 853N's, never overhauled.
I have all the maintenance records from the first 2 owners and nothing major ever occurred to them.

For quite a few years, Detroits had a lock on most of the marine diesel market in the USA; there weren't a lot of other choices. While this may have held progress back a bit, it did allow the companies who marinized DDs to continually improve their products. They are probably the most reliable diesels every installed in boats.

And they do sound cool, especially the V12s.

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Originally Posted by Tricia II

Mine are 57 years old and purr like kittens, very loud kittens. 853N's, never overhauled.
I have all the maintenance records from the first 2 owners and nothing major ever occurred to them.

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Outstanding. :)

Absolutely. 1978 53’ YF. 8V-71TI’s. High hour by the way.

I loved my '79 43C with its 435hp 6v92ta's. She was slow, and loved to drink, but very dependable. Just like the owner. And they'd light off the instant I touched the start button.

That said, I'd never go back now that I have Cummins QSM11s in my '86 45C. Faster and a lot less fuel consumption. I do miss the sound of the DDs.

Of course I would, they're some of the most reliable marine engines ever made. They're also about the only route left to good cheap boating with a big boat, their parts prices are very reasonable compared to CAT, MAN, or Cummins. The only downside is that you're certainly not winning any races at 16 knots. But given the overall calculus I think that's a good trade off.

I rebuilt my 8v71ti's last year rather than repowering. It cost about $70k for both engines. My logic was that repowering would cost more than double what the rebuilds cost and even if I did bite the bullet and do it, whatever modern engine I would replace them with was unlikely to provide the 30 years of trouble-free boating the DD's provided. In my case, the rebuilds were needed due to an idiot mechanic, it wasn't even the engines' fault.