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Hemicuda
 
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Default Turbocharging a Marine Engine

So from what I can summarize from the above posts are that the turbo
will probably work great while cruising and at top end but will be a
dog coming out of the hole. This is a dumb question but I thought
that at slower speeds boats require less horsepower to move them
through the water. As the speed increases so does the power
requirement for a certain hull design. Is this true? If so it
appears that the low end lack of boost shouldn't kill me. Or am I
totally of base? The other thing I was thinking of was to put smaller
turbos on the engine to reduce lag but sacrifice top end boost.
Marine engines rarely go over 5,000 RPM so I could probably go with a
smallish turbine housing with a waste gate that will bring on boost
quickly and then dump the excess exhaust gas at higher speeds. I know
the heat will be a problem but I think that is manageable but I don't
want to take forever to get up on plane. Has anyone seen or ridden in
a gasoline turbo'd boat and seen how bad the hole shot was? The
reason I want to stay away from a blower is that although it will
boost power I think it will hurt the fuel efficiency. Also blowers
tend to be expensive and I can score a pair of T3 Turbos from old T
birds which would fit a 5.0 or 5.7L fairly well for cheap at a junk
yard and fabricate a set-up. Thanks for all the help and I
appreciate any more thoughts or info you could pass on!