The real advantage to a
boat owner in common rail is not
fuel economy which I'm sure is better, but bet you would be hard pressed to measure the difference or emissions, which is the reason that
engine manufacturers are going common rail, cause they have to.
But as an owner the advantage is what is called in the automotive industry as NVH, an acronym of course that stands for
Noise, Vibration and Harshness, the NVH of a mechanical direct injected
Diesel is horrible, rattly noisy, shaky things.
A common rail can do magical things that a mechanical injected
motor cannot, like vary injection timing and in particular do what is called pilot injection. What that is is a tiny injection of
fuel to get the fire burning, just milliseconds before the main injection event. what that does is completely eliminate the
Diesel clatter that is normal for a mechanical injected Diesel.
A common rail Diesel can be as smooth and quiet as a four stroke spark injected
engine like your car or a modern
outboard. The Big
Mercury Verado
outboard I had was so smooth and quiet the only way I knew it was running was the
noise from the stream of
water out the side.
How nice would it be to have a sailboat that in the
Salon it was as smooth and quiet as the inside of a Luxury car on the highway?
I don't know if the manufacturers will, but with common rail, they could.