Crusaders?

[Capt.Erich]

While giving Labrador (Skip) a hand last night I couldn't help but notice how well thought out the Crusader engines seem to be. I later read David Pascoe's article and he seem to be pretty impressed with them. Here's the link:

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/GasEngines.htm

All of that said, what has been the experiences of the members with Crusaders and other gas engines?

I am at the point that I have desided to either rehab my Seamasters as they are running just fine but need a good cleaning and repaint... or repower with other gas engines. The Seamasters are good engines and will likely run longer than I want to keep the boat but they only get me to a blistering 10-12 knots riding on the edge of getting out of the hole. Here's an old add for the Seamaster if you are curious.

http://www.samsmarine.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=1022&cat=500&page=1

 

[67hat34c]

hard to believe you are only getting that speed with those engines. something must not be right. I have a 34c with crusader 454's and with clean bottom etc can get 32kts wot. we cruise at 18 to 20kts.

Replace those engines with a pair of big block crusaders with MPI for economy. Now of course consider the future of having to deal with Ethanol Gasoline. do you want to replace motors and then have to do tanks one day or replace with diesels and use your existing tanks. I will tell you for economy you can go with Yanmar 260's and you will not have to change shafts etc. George Gendhauer on this site did his 34c with these engines and gets an honest 18k cruise, WOT is low, i think around 22kts.

 

[smoothmove]

After looking at what's being offered today and talking to various repowering boat yards, I have come to the conclusion that Crusader is so clearly the best choice that it surprises me me that anyone would use anything else. If cost is a big factor, well then maybe it's a different story. Crusader is going to cost you more but look at the trouble you go through in a repower. Isn't it worth a few extra boat dollars to have the best? For what it's worth, if I were looking at a repowered boat, I'd reduce my offer if I saw anything besides a Crusader in there. Heck I probably wouldn't even buy it. These comments of course apply to gasoline engines only. I suppose that owners of Mercruiser conversions will now chime in and let me know I'm mistaken, but they do a nice job at Crusader and I'm glad to see them recognized for it.
Eric

 

[Capt.Erich]

Now of course consider the future of having to deal with Ethanol Gasoline. do you want to replace motors and then have to do tanks one day or replace with diesels and use your existing tanks.

I'm not overly conserned about the ethanol issue right now. After talking to the major supplier of gasoline for Eastern NC, I doubt that ethanol will be an issue unless the Fed. Govt. were to mandate it. Even then, he says there isn't enough ethanol produced in the US to meet that kind of demand. He told me that ethanol is used in the big cities like Raleigh and Charlotte but has not been used in Eastern NC.

 

[MarioG]

Call me crazy but I absolutely love my Chrysler 440's. 330HP gives me about 21K WOT and about 9 kts at 1850 rpms with a 10gph fuel burn. Some say that parts are hard to find. Well I haven't had a problem finding parts (Marysville marine), but the reality is that I haven't had to replace any parts do to any break down since I left the boat yard in Maryland and that was about 300 engine hours ago. i have a great spare parts kit which remains intact. So far they only require gas and oil plus the standard oil change.

Yes, I'm a converted Chrysler fan

 

[MikeP]

Well, any non-Mopar muscle car era engine was just a pretender anyway so there's no reason to think that a marine version Mopar couldn't put the power to the prop. I must immediately admit that I have no experience at all with their marine engines.

But as far as car engines...

Look at top of the super stock class - SS/A. NHRA finally (just a couple of years ago) had to separate out the SS/A hemis into their own class - SS/AH since no other SS/A car could run as quick. So rather than upset all the GM racers, they just moved the the 1968 Hemi Barracuda/Dart "up" into a class above SS/A. So now the Mopars have to spot time to all the wanna-be's.

I don't drag race any more but I find that all kind of pitiful. It reminds me back in the original muscle car days when the Mopars were originally cleaning up in Pro Stock. Sox and Martin - won all but one race in '70 (I believe it was '70 but I could be off a year) The next season the NHRA began adding 100lbs to their car anytime it won a race. Obviously after a while, the weight penalty meant they weren't competitive.

Same thing happened in NASCAR - weight penalties/restrictors for the Mopars until they were no longer competitive.

Why not just make the "wish I could compete but I can't" guys make better engines.

Sorry for this totally off-boat rant. As you can no doubt tell, I was an avid Mopar racer - SS/A Hemi Barracuda and SS/F Dodge Challenger.

 

[Maynard Rupp]

In the 60s we built a lot of engines for drag racing, from fuel burning 392 cu in. hemis to small block Chevys. The "B" series Chrysler was great. This is the engine with the external oil pump and the oil filter sticking straight forward at the front of the engine. They were good with wedge heads and even better with the hemi heads. I rebuilt a 426 wedge engine for our clubs workboat. It is still running fine after about 2500 hrs. I built it in 1981. The 454 GM engine is as good or better especially if you have the 4 bolt mains, commonly known as the "truck block". Crusader uses the 4 bolt main block, but Merccruiser uses the standard 2 bolt main block. Why, I don't know. I just heard that Crusader no longer offers the 454 GM based engine. I have a pair in our 36C with 1200 hours and they are as good as new. We are talking about a switch to diesels so I may have those engines and trannys available. If we do the switch I will also need to sell our Onan 6.5 kw gen. set. This thing only has 300 total hours. We will also have 4 like new, working sets of AC instruments. The ones on the inside helm have never seen the elements.

 

[Maynard Rupp]

Well, any non-Mopar muscle car era engine was just a pretender anyway so there's no reason to think that a marine version Mopar couldn't put the power to the prop. I must immediately admit that I have no experience at all with their marine engines.

But as far as car engines...

Look at top of the super stock class - SS/A. NHRA finally (just a couple of years ago) had to separate out the SS/A hemis into their own class - SS/AH since no other SS/A car could run as quick. So rather than upset all the GM racers, they just moved the the 1968 Hemi Barracuda/Dart "up" into a class above SS/A. So now the Mopars have to spot time to all the wanna-be's.

I don't drag race any more but I find that all kind of pitiful. It reminds me back in the original muscle car days when the Mopars were originally cleaning up in Pro Stock. Sox and Martin - won all but one race in '70 (I believe it was '70 but I could be off a year) The next season the NHRA began adding 100lbs to their car anytime it won a race. Obviously after a while, the weight penalty meant they weren't competitive.

Same thing happened in NASCAR - weight penalties/restrictors for the Mopars until they were no longer competitive.

Why not just make the "wish I could compete but I can't" guys make better engines.

Sorry for this totally off-boat rant. As you can no doubt tell, I was an avid Mopar racer - SS/A Hemi Barracuda and SS/F Dodge Challenger.

You can't totally blame NHRA for Ronnie and Buddies weight add on. Every week Chrysler came out with some new lightweight panels, fenders, even plastic windshields and rear windows. They had to offer them to everyone so they had some of the stupidest part descriptions. The aluminum fenders were offered for cars operating in corrosive areas. They moved the whole rear end forward 20" and called the kit a wet pavement traction enhancing kit. It was Mopar's crazy moves that created the "funny" car. I had 2 of those and we were very popular in the mid 60s.

 

[Boss Lady]

I had a 413 wedge that made 673 HP and 603 ft/lbs of torque. naturally aspirated, with the largest solid lifter camshaft that Lunati had made at that time 1977. We dyno'ed a totally showroom stock 426 hemi that made 550 HP on the first pull. I had to race against 2900 lb chevies and my car was ballasted at 3800 lbs for them to even be on the same race track. Mopar rules! Anyone remember the Buick GS? Well that grandma car dusted the special order, race only single seat aluminum big block corvette, and it had an air conditioner, automatic tranny and an 8 track. The Buick engineers caught hell for besting the GM's flagship performance car. LOL The did it again in the 80's with the skylark AKA Grand National, which sold for $16K vs the $40K corvette.

 

[jim rosenthal]

What, no ex-Ford racers......? not even one?

 

[Maynard Rupp]

What, no ex-Ford racers......? not even one?

Sorry Jim...In 1967, the last year I raced, we had a Lincoln/Mercury sposorship. We used the 427 SOHC engine. These were an overhead cam, hemi-head conversion of the standard 427 Ford engine. They were a little tough to work on because of the chain drive cam stuff. We never ran them on gas, but they were very competitive on nitromethane. I never saw a great advantage over the old 392 Chrysler engine though. Fuel burning engines are a different cat. They need a hemi combustion chamber if possible, but the hosepower output is a direct result of the amount of air and fuel you can jam in. Cu.in. doesnt make much difference. You just drive the fuel pump faster and overdrive that old 6-71 supercharger a little more. We were getting 3000 hp. from the 392 Chrysler or the Ford 426 SOHC. Today's engines are putting out 7000hp. Needless to say, these are kinda tough on both fuel consumption,(1 to 3 gallons/sec.), and engine parts. We used to pay $15.00/gallon for 100% nitromethane. Now they pay $75.00/gallon for 80% and 20% methanol. Oh how times change. Blue Note would fly with a couple of those engines, Jim.

 

[Boss Lady]

Sorry, but Ford only made a handfull limited edition engines that could even be made to compete with common chevy and MOPAR engines. Their Boss engines had a lot of potential but they were made in such low numbers that they never really got into the fray where they were relevent to the pony car wars. The Boss heads had such large ports (intended for NASCAR) that they wound being complete dogs in a street car. Fords best offerings had 14+ second quarter mile times at a time where you could walk into the "Buick" dealership and buy a car, drive to the drag strip, jack it up, put on some slicks and run 12 second drag times, and it only got better from there. I campaigned a 1970 Road Runner against roller cammed, tube framed, chevies, and gave them a run for their money until they started running sub 10 second times and I did not want to destroy the car by stripping it to go faster, so I switched to bracket racing.

My favorite visual Ford is the 1970 Mustang in full trim, I used to joke about putting a Mopar engine in one! LOL

 

[MikeP]

"You can't totally blame NHRA for Ronnie and Buddies weight add on. Every week Chrysler came out with some new lightweight panels, fenders, even plastic windshields and rear windows."

Yes, that's true but it seems to me that was the point of factory development. The fact that Mopar did it better than everyone else shouldn't result in a penalty to them.

Weight/restrictions were added to the Mopar NASCAR hemis - making them uncompetitive, to the Mopar pro stocks with the same result, and the SS class cars - also with the same results.

It's just like laws anywhere - do you think the same restrictions would have been applied if GM cars had been so dominant? Heck no, because MOST people drove GM cars!

My very first drag racing experience (this was many years ago-I should have quit then and saved a LOT of money) was in running my '68 340 Barracuda which, at the time, was NHRA factored to run in J Stock. When I arrived at the track one Sunday, I discovered that now the car was now in H stock because the car was "too dominant" in J. But NHRA had put it in J in the first place... So this stuff happened even down low in the amateur classes.

But back to the subject at hand - Crusaders. Yes, they have always been considered the cream of the marine engine conversions. They fact that they always used the 4 bolt mains version of the engine is a clear indicator of why. One can argue all they want about whether a 4 bolt is needed in the application but the reality is that 4 bolt mains make a stronger bottom end. It's a better and more durable design which seems to me to be VERY important in a marine application.

 

[Boss Lady]

I have to say that the Chevy based Crusaders get my vote over Mercruiser. Chrysler exited the marine industry in 1984 when they sold the last of their marine businesses (the outboard company), the new owners soon ran into trouble and wound up selling to Brunswick. Now you know why there is no new Chrysler engines on the water. It would be cool for someone to offer the new Hemi marinized for boats.

 

[Capt.Erich]

It would be pretty cool to say "Yep... I got a couple of Hemi's in there." When asked about my boat.

 

[Maynard Rupp]

It would be pretty cool to say "Yep... I got a couple of Hemi's in there." When asked about my boat.

Hey...I could easily build you up a couple of fuel burning 392 hemis with 6-71 blowers off one of our members old Detroit engines. We could easily get 1000 hp with very little durability issues. Now, the fuel ain't cheap and these pppies could really chew some down, but think of how cool it would look to have a pair of Enderle injecter units in the salon of a Hat. You would have to squirt some methanol into the air body to get the engines up and running. Wow, a Hatteras that would clean you off the flybridge when you cob those puppies. I would think an 80mph cruise would be easy. Look at the incredible amount of money those old boys are pouringinto their new 70' sport fish boats. Hell, whats a little extra fuel cost.

 

[67hat34c]

The Crusaders are not a Truck Block but what GM Called an Industrial Block. In the day all Crusaders, 6 cyl through the big blocks had the 4 bolt mains. But now days I am not sure GM makes an industrial block. I am not sure how many hours mine have on them, guessing 12-1300, clocks have 4-500 on them and last owner said they were changed with 6-700 on old ones. Anyhow they were installed in December 1988, Model 350's. they are strong , do not use oil etc. I believe they need valve guides and possibly valve job but not an urgent thing. Based on my results from last weekend they seem perfect, Since finding the Distributor problem i will now try a WOT again. Still think the Carbs need rebuilding but again not urgent. Anyhow Next thing is to install the Flo-Scan that I just purchased from Doug who is member of this forum, 33 Bertram.

I have the Blue Aeroquip fuel lines but could not find any numbers showing hose size, wrote down all info on the hoses and will ask the local hose distributor what they are as i need to get the fitting so i can cut the hose and install the sensors. Anyone here know anything about these hoses?

 

[Capt.Erich]

Does anyone have 350's in their 34 SF? I've found a pair with EFI and a warranty. I'm guessing that EFI will be more eficient but I'm worried that the 350's may work a little harder due to the weight of the boat. Would 454's be a better bet? Any thoughts?

 

[UNIQUE_NAME]

Does anyone have 350's in their 34 SF? I've found a pair with EFI and a warranty. I'm guessing that EFI will be more eficient but I'm worried that the 350's may work a little harder due to the weight of the boat. Would 454's be a better bet? Any thoughts?

i had 350/270hp carbed mercs in a 34' sedan. woefully underpowered. 12 -13 nt cruise at about 3000 -3100rpm. 20k lbs wasjust tooooo much boat to push.

jim

 

[MikeP]

I'm surprised that the 350s didn't do better. My previous boat was a 36 DC Mainship w/350 crusaders. 3000 RPM was around 16; WOT was 26 at 4300 RPM. Boat weighed 20,400 per the boat lift at the marina (I have NO idea if it was even remotely accurate).