Helia 44: Engines

[Cotemar]

The Helia 44 comes standard with the Volvo Penta D2-40 engines and 130S sail drives.

My recommendation would be to go with the Volvo Penta D2-55 engines with folding props, This would allow you to motor with just one engine.

D2-55 - Engine range : Volvo Penta

[ZipTie]

Here is some more info on Volvo EVC engine instruments, showing engine temp.

Simple DIY plug and play gages and wiring.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1027205

[Cheeky Monkey]

Do you know what the part number is for the Engine Temp gauges?

Thanks
Ryan

[ZipTie]

Ryan,

You have for choices, but here is the Temp gage numbers.

Coolant temperature
Diameter 52 mm (2.05 in.)
Black, Degrees C 874904
Black, Degrees F 874918
White, Degrees C 874921
White, Degrees F 874931

[cwjohm]

Do not forget extender cable as will not fit otherwise.

[Cotemar]

Helia 44's

Here is the latest Volvo Penta D2-55 Engine Parts List

[Helia 44]

Originally Posted by Cotemar

The Helia 44 comes standard with the Volvo Penta D2-40 engines and 130S sail drives.

My recommendation would be to go with the Volvo Penta D2-55 engines with folding props, This would allow you to motor with just one engine.

D2-55 - Engine range : Volvo Penta

Yea, what he said... I am an Owner of a three year old Helia 44 AVALON, a few Topics here... Further to what he said, You can have quite a lot of confidence in these engines as they are overbuilt.. I had discussions last week with the Engineers of Volvo. The 75 HP is the Turbo version of this motor, but they said the same motor. So this D2-55 is the turbo version with better rings and pistons and stronger lower end, same engine without the Turbo, means it is an under rated stronger engine. These D2-55's should be a 10,000 hour engine and more... Do your maintenance and you are unlikely to outlive the engine... My three year old engines are at 750 hours.. They had their break in valve adjust at 500 hours, also remember to do that.

Further Tip: Add the lubricant TC-W3 to add lubricity to the ULSD as our ULSD diesel is very dry and lacking all lubricity. It will add further life to the top end.. It is the lubricant they add to high horsepower gas race engines (petrol) but it works very well in diesels at 200-1 or 250 to 1.. It has been in use for diesels for over 10 years, and on laboratory tests it ranks 7th in the world. Amsoil Synthetic diesel lube ranks 9th. TC-W3 is good for the engines, just not good on DPF exhaust vehicles with SCR or AddBlue.. Our boat diesels are clean, straight, standard exhaust, none of that EPA stuff so the TC-W3 lubes the top end, injection pump, injectors, valves, and rings: Could double their life due to the low lubricity of the dry ULSD we get...

Kind regards, Helia 44, AVALON

[Cotemar]

Helia 44 owners,

The Volvo Penta D2-55 is really a Silver Perkins model 404D-22 that has been marinised and painted green,

You can use the equivalent Perkins 404D-22 parts on your Volvo D2-55 in most cases.

[Cotemar]

Helia 44 owners,

The engine rooms are a bit tight to get in and out of and I noticed that the port engine has the Multilink control wiring laying on the floor where you naturally want to step.

These wires would be a bear to fix or replace as they go all the way to the helm.

I made a small step with non-skid to cover it and prevent any damage from happening to these control wires.

[mndreamchaser1]

Originally Posted by cwjohm

Do not forget extender cable as will not fit otherwise.

Does anyone know the part number for the extender cable for adding the temperature gauges? I can't find it anywhere in the Volvo parts listing.

[gipsgh]

I was able to find my receipt from Gwen Marine (La Rochelle) for the extensions... I believe the cable extension is 874759 - and that this is a 1m extension.

Something worth checking out is to install the Yacht Device Engine Gateway. Essentially it connects all the sensors for the Volvo Pentas that you already have (rpm, coolant temp, etc.) to the NMEA 2000 network, thus allowing you to view all the info on your chartplotter and other network devices. Assuming it works (has anyone installed one of these?), it would be a much cheaper and simpler solution than installing analog gauges for the engine temp sensors. No cutting holes in fiberglass at least!

Check it out at Yacht Devices Engine Gateway for Volvo Penta and J1939 engines.

I have recently purchased the Yacht Device barometer transducer. It was entirely plug and play.

Does anyone have experience with the Yacht Device's Engine Gateway?

Thanks,
Graham

[rmaher]

I've tried this on my Orana 44 with twin D1-30Bs and a Raymarine E120. The chartplotter sees both engines as the port engine (constantly switching the data from one to the other on the port engine display - the starboard engine display is at 0) Unplugging one or the other from the N2k backbone relieves the switching but still only reads as if it were the port engine. I'll advise if I found out more and would appreciate any help others may offer.

Thanks - Rob

[mndreamchaser1]

Originally Posted by gipsgh

I was able to find my receipt from Gwen Marine (La Rochelle) for the extensions... I believe the cable extension is 874759 - and that this is a 1m extension.

Something worth checking out is to install the Yacht Device Engine Gateway. Essentially it connects all the sensors for the Volvo Pentas that you already have (rpm, coolant temp, etc.) to the NMEA 2000 network, thus allowing you to view all the info on your chartplotter and other network devices. Assuming it works (has anyone installed one of these?), it would be a much cheaper and simpler solution than installing analog gauges for the engine temp sensors. No cutting holes in fiberglass at least!

Check it out at Yacht Devices Engine Gateway for Volvo Penta and J1939 engines.

I have recently purchased the Yacht Device barometer transducer. It was entirely plug and play.

Does anyone have experience with the Yacht Device's Engine Gateway?

Thanks,
Graham

Has anyone tried adding the Volvo NMEA interface (Part no. 3889758)? It would seem safer to use a Volvo interface than a third party. But I don't know if the engines (D2-55's in our case) already have all necessary sensors, and whether this interface seamlessly interacts with the factory Garmin plotters. I was going to add temperature gauges, but adding this interface (if it really works) would be a much better solution. No additional "holes" in the pedestal and ability to monitor at both plotters (we have an 8" outside and the bigger 12" inside).

And if you add this, do you need a multilink connector (part no. 3588206) as well? Volvo web guidance has been hard to find.

Any advice appreciated. Need to decide on this or temp gauges soon.

[Cotemar]

The VP NMEA 2000 converter part# 3889758 will give you all the engine data you need, but I believe you would need one for each engine.

If you plug 1 converter into each VP tach at the helm and into the NMEA bus bar at the helm then you should be able to display any engine data on your Garmin or Raymarine plotters or displays anywhere on your boat.

[gipsgh]

Hi Folks-

I recently had not one but two MDI failures on my D2-55F's. Both port and starboard engine went out within a few days of each other, both around 450-475 engine hours. Without the MDI the button panel does not work so engines cannot be started (OK, yes, they can be started, but you're going to have to hotwire them). It took me about a day to trace all of the wiring harnesses for continuity to determine the problem was definitely inside that black box. VP had that figured out too in just fifteen minutes with their fancy pin board tester.

It should also be noted that inside the black box is solid state and several boards. No knocking it with a hammer to kick loose a stuck relay...that was not our problem anyway.

Volvo Penta were able to replace both MDIs in Las Palmas before our upcoming crossing to the Caribbean. We had excellent support from Volvo Penta in Las Palmas and Lanzarote. But apparently the MDI part is extremely difficult to find. Stocks worldwide were reported to me by VP to be low. A problem with the current part number or batch? Was the timing of my TWO failures just coincidence or is there something wrong with electrical installation? VP made me think this is more of a batch MDI issue, as it was reported to me to be rather common and something they have seen a lot of lately. One of the technicians even told me it was more common on engines installed in FP catamarans, but offered no other data to support this...

Anyway, those of you considering venturing far with yet-to-be-trusted newer engines should consider carrying a spare MDI or better yet, know how to start your engines without it. VP will swear up and down that there is no way to start them without the MDI, but all that's necessary is to get batt power to your start solenoid. I would never recommend doing this unless it's an extreme emergency, but we should all know at least how to do it just in case. The engine starts and has normal function for the mechanical controls. You do not have guage data or tach, as all this goes through the MDI black box. Additionally you will have to manually stop the engine by pushing the stop solenoid lever on the engine since the button panel stop button of course runs through the MDI. I still have questions on impact to alternator, though I believe alternator output is also controlled by MDI.

Has anyone else experienced problems with relatively new engines or MDIs? Any thoughts on whether my two failures are just coincidence or if there may be more at play with a bad electrical install?

Thanks