Running my engine hard?

[Transition]

That all sounds very knowledgable, but is "Greek" to a newbie such as myself. Impressive though! Lol!

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yanmar recommends running their engines up to near the redline under load for a few minutes, every few hours, if you are running very slowly.
YMMV.

For a few seconds, not minutes.

I never do that. I am like your dad.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Transition

That all sounds very knowledgable, but is "Greek" to a newbie such as myself. Impressive though! Lol!

Horsepower is RPM X torque, a decrease in either will result in less HP, so unless you can reach full rated RPM, your not getting full rated HP.

By torquemeter, I'm guessing he means a way to determine if your lugging your motor too much and should stop pushing the power forward, cause if your overpropped or have a dirty prop and or hull, you can be overstressing your engine and maybe not be aware you are, cause the RPM isn't up near redline. Think of pulling a hill in a loaded vehicle with the cruise control on, and not downshifting.
This is another reason why I believe you should every now and again operate at full throttle, cause if you can't get full RPM, that tells you your prop and or bottom is fouled and by running at normal cruise RPM, it's actually working the engine a lot harder than it does with a clean prop.
I'm not saying run the snot out of it, just ease power up till it's at full power and boat speed stabilizes, compare that to an established norm, and slowly begin backing the power out.
Mythical numbers, but if your max rated RPM is 3600 and you normally get 3400, but today can only get 3000, then your normal cruise at 2800 is actually running at almost full power, and not well below full power like normal.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

For a few seconds, not minutes.

I never do that. I am like your dad.

Yes, but

He's I believe an aftercooled Turbo motor, they are really more of a Hotrod Diesel than the older Farm tractor motors, I believe they really do benefit from cylinder head temps and boost being raised until they normalize at full throttle to clean things out every now and again.
Really a different sort of motor, the newer common rail Diesels in particular can be very much of a Hotrod, they are not our Grandfathers Diesels.

The Gearhead in me loves the technology, and it's hard to argue against more power, smaller footprint, less fuel consumption, lower weight and cleaner burning, but I would like to have one of the old design Diesels that seem to go Chug, Chug forever.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Guy

There should be a torque meter or something to be more suitable for sailboats.

The more suitable is pyrometer to find the exhaust gas temperature. At optimal loading it should be around 600 deg C or 1100 deg F, + 10% can be considered as safe. When running low loads for longer period time to time getting up to optimal loading keeps the diesel engine happy.
http://bankspower.com/techarticles/s...t-is-important

BR Teddy

[model 10]

Probably several ways to measure torque but it could be a fancy drive coupling on the transmission. With rpm and a torque meter reading you can calculate the power you are using. With a turbo engine you would also want an EGT indicator.
It would be great for long distance motoring. You could really optimize fuel consumption. It would be great in general if you payed attention to it.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Yes, but

Don't "yes, but" me, son!

What does the book say?

I find the Yanmar book takes a very, very careful reading quite often to drag out the salient details and remember them.

The Turbo book would be different than the normal 4JH book, i should think.


Mark

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Don't "yes, but" me, son!

What does the book say?

I find the Yanmar book takes a very, very careful reading quite often to drag out the salient details and remember them.

The Turbo book would be different than the normal 4JH book, i should think.


Mark

Mark, I don't know.
Now take this with a grain of salt, but since the 70's when it seemed the marketing depts got involved with the service manuals, I tend to give them less credence.
Remember the car ad's back then, where they showed a car on the service rack, and then boasted their brand spent less time up in the air than others?
Well all that was changed was the printing in the manual, service intervals were extended based solely on sales and the fact that the car would last until the warranty expired.
My 2010 Prius when new had a 5,000 mile oil change interval, many groups complained to Toyota that the service interval was wasting natural resources and that seeing as how the Prius was the flagship "green" car, it should have a longer interval. Toyota agreed and changed the interval to 10,000 miles.
My old Miata has two completely different cam drive belt replacement intervals, one for California and another for the rest of the world, California mandates it last 100,000 miles, so that's it's interval in California, the rest of the world, 60,000 miles I think.

[Cadence]

I don't know if someplace it was mentioned? Diesels do not like running without load, I did see that. But don't run one for hours without varying the RPM once in a while. You don't want ridges on the walls at the top of the stroke at a continuous RPM.

[reed1v]

What a bunch of bull. Diesel engines run at about three quarters rpm at designed loads for hundreds of thousands of hours, non stop. Pump stations, utility grids, locomotives, etc. Revving up every so often completely useless and can do damage. The old notion of blowing carbon out the exhaust is basically an urban legend. The black stuff is unburnt fuel, not carbon buildup.

If you got clean fuel, clean air, and the valves are good, you will not have much if any carbon buildup in a diesel. Just ain't going to happen. Old gas cars with old fashion spark plugs were subject to carbon on the plug tips as they wore down due to low compression, inadequate spark, and cruddy fuel.

[JOHNMARDALL]

Originally Posted by Transition

Ha, funny, informative read...thank you and all for you advice/input. Regarding my engine...it ha blue one. Guess I have a lot of reading etc. to do!

Cheers all.
Mark

Y

Yellow is the best engine color, but blue is also nice and gray is not bad. Avoid white, red and green, those colors are bad luck on a sailboat.

The biggest problem with engines during refits is that they sit too long without being run and electrical components and connections deteriorate, so make sure you run that lovely old hunk frequently to keep it warm and dry - whenever possible under load at around 2000 rpm, even if you have to tie it to the pilings to do it. Dock insurance is also good.

All the best

John Mardall
Vetus Group.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by JOHNMARDALL

Y

Yellow is the best engine color, but blue is also nice and gray is not bad. Avoid white, red and green, those colors are bad luck on a sailboat.

The biggest problem with engines during refits is that they sit too long without being run and electrical components and connections deteriorate, so make sure you run that lovely old hunk frequently to keep it warm and dry - whenever possible under load at around 2000 rpm, even if you have to tie it to the pilings to do it. Dock insurance is also good.

All the best

John Mardall
Vetus Group.

Well that is also a wrong answer. You can store a diesel for a long time without starting it. Just run it dry, disconnect batteries, and you are done. We have had boats in storage for over 5 years and their engines start right up and run without problems after that duration. Most boats in storage at professional boat yards like Hinckleys just leave the engines alone.

[a64pilot]

If your going to put an engine into long term storage, you need to "pickle" it.
If you don't and there were no problems, then you just got lucky is all. US Military and others I'm sure have pickled engines since long before I was alive.
I'm sure the reserve fleet in Maryland, maybe Virginia? Is pickled for instance. It's amounts to an extensive winterizing process where the cylinders are fogged and the oil drained and refilled with preservative oil and intake and exhaust sometimes have desiccant added, sometimes just sealed with barrier paper etc.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

If your going to put an engine into long term storage, you need to "pickle" it.
If you don't and there were no problems, then you just got lucky is all. US Military and others I'm sure have pickled engines since long before I was alive.
I'm sure the reserve fleet in Maryland, maybe Virginia? Is pickled for instance. It's amounts to an extensive winterizing process where the cylinders are fogged and the oil drained and refilled with preservative oil and intake and exhaust sometimes have desiccant added, sometimes just sealed with barrier paper etc.

You do not need to "pickle" an engine. Navy does it for indefinite layover, like 40 years or more. Obviously you can do that with a small diesel and should actually fog a gas outboard motor for the winter. But for the average bloke storing the boat for one or two years, not necessary. No yards up here in Maine do that unless requested. Diesels are happy in a dry storage area free of rodents and if possible, decompressed.

[Wainui]

My redone 1966 Perkins 4-108 runs a 25k boat at:
WOT in Neutral 3600 rpm
MAX in Gear 3000 rpm
Cruising 2600 rpm @ 180 deg water temp. aprox 36hp

Max Continuous RPM for a 4-108 is 3000rpm aprox 40hp

Vibration is not a problem and seems to run at 2600 all day long.