Adapting marine 2-stroke for automotive use

[ejdepalm]

Hello everyone

I’m a 23 year old engineering student (aeronautical and vehicle engineering) from Sweden. For to long I have been wondering if it would be possible to adapt a marine two stroke engine to automotive use.

The engine (if possible) will be used in a mid engine 4wd design.

The power head that I have been looking at is the Mercury Pro Max 300x.



There are some obvious problems that have to be solved (like clutch and flywheel) but what I really would like to know is what kind of power delivery and engine characteristics one could expect from a engine like this?

Feel free to ventilate any ideas and suggestions!

Best regards
Erik

[WATERWINGS]

Someone on this site had a dune buggy rail with a 280? Merc on it, and in the video showed it being a wheelie rideing machine....looked like a blast to drive !

Oh yea......WELCOME ABOARD !

[Eagle One]

Saab made a 2 stroke model back in the 60's but discontinued it. It can be done as I've seen a smaller model in a go cart before. Water routing and clutch and flywheel seem to ber the biggest issues.

[XstreamVking]

When i was in Merc. school back in the 80s, there were some people making a small formula type, open wheel race car with a rear engine mounted v-6 merc motor in it. Was really quick on the bottom end from what I saw... One of the techs. from the design team was at school to be merc certified.. Never heard or saw any more of it since. I would guess that there's a lot of problems to be solved with this build. But it can be done. Speeds talked about were in the 130mph range? The idea was to start a new class of racing for smaller tracks.. Would be really cool to see and HEAR. If you try it please post some build pics of the project!

[WATERWINGS]

Do a search...I think it was Simon Marine that built the sand rail.....but there was a video here on Scream and Fly of it.

[ejdepalm]

I found this sandrail on youtube, apparently it's powered by a 3.6L OMC V8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRKeuHyI0lw

[WATERWINGS]

I found this sandrail on youtube, apparently it's powered by a 3.6L OMC V8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRKeuHyI0lw

The one I saw was a V-6 Merc....sounded outragous

[fyremanbil]

I've also seen them in sand rails, but the most interesting was a Merc in a small streamliner at Bonneville. Seems the displacement classes back in the day didn't specify 4 stroke only, and a champ style 2L on gas was hard to beat.

[mach351]

Eric Simons rail had a 2.4 Bridgeport i belive - complete with TURBO!

[Mark75H]

In the late 50's and early 60's Merc and McCulloch outboard motors were used in the small sports car classes, 40 50 and 60 cubic inches (700, 850 and 1000cc's). Konig racing outboards were used in motorcycles.

[mer]

seems cooling would be a big issue if y plan to run it for any period of time 2 cycle boat engines are a big water heater anyway!!!!!what do y plan doing racing draging ect..

[150aintenuff]

electric water pump and a large enough radiator and pressure tank to supply approx 450 HP is all you really need, an exhaust system designed with enough restriction and a proper length tuner to effectively scavenge the Cyl and not over scavenge the cyl, , as for Flywheel, and trans coupler, easy enough to fab... personally i wouldnt run much more than a few lbs... then belhousing and any trans you want to couple it to... really wouldnt be very difficult once mounts and adaptors were fabbed up..

biggest issue is keeping it all cool... OB's only run at 145*.. and 210-220 is considered overheated

[Hillman]

Even if engine cooling can be solved, we can't be sure how the engine will behave under various load conditions. Much different from constant load conditions in the water.

[150aintenuff]

should be alot easier on the engine than a dynomometer environment.... the key will be clearances on the piston to wall of the cylinder and the conditions of the crank bearings.. then all that will need to be figured out is the flywheel or flex plate weight...


atleast the engine is ballanced internally... and the flywheel on the top would become the ballancer for drive pulleys and then a flexplate or flywheel for the clutch would be neutral and easy to fab..

[Simon]

Here is some info http://forums.screamandfly.com/forum...ht=simon+turbo