Indmar teaming with Ford

[Bad05]

x2

I kinda just laugh at this thread. so much emotion. Its not like Indmar just teamed up with Hyundai? I find myself more interested to see it, test it, then decide what it is or is not. But life is about change. Last I checked innovation is based on change? I believe its a sign of old age when change upsets you?

but props to timmy and dom for some voice of reason on this thread.

[Wickedcummins]

Yah Emotion CHange for no good reason... How do you like all your change with Obama.. Same thing.. Shits not broke dont try and fix it.. Emotion comes from loving everything about tige... now they jump to a POS engine company that 80% of people dont want.. O well like I said Ill get my new one before this is in all of them and ill dig this thread up ! =) Till then Im out

[trace]

What would have been really game changing is if they would have teamed with cummins to bring to market an inboard boat diesel package.

[sandm]

so much emotion for such a trivial topic. I would bet it was the same years ago when everyone switched from the 351 to the gm block.

I've had great luck with my ford engine at 150k towing miles. my buddy at work has 140k on his chevy and again, no issues. someone else on here can cite the exact opposite for both brands with engine failures from both at under 10k miles. it happens but as engines have evolved, I doubt ford would still be selling a crapload of trucks if their engine r&d were producing failures. last car mag I got still showed ford as the #1 seller of trucks(again, not to start a debate, simply a fact). only time will tell if the market accepts this change and as wicked mentioned, 5 years from now we'll see how reliable they are, but I'm betting he won't be resurrecting this thread with any real increase in failures.

the loser in all this will be the boat shops that decide to keep inventory on hand for both brands. those are $$ that will be tied up in inventory rather than pushing lower boat prices out the door. I would see the larger dealers offering up quick service where some of the smaller dealers will now turn a repair that should be 1 day due to having gm parts instock into 2 or 3 waiting for parts for both brands now.

[Z3CO23]

I'll have to agree this thread has been entertaining....

We gotta step back and look at the facts. When I bought my boat this summer I had heard grumblings all over the internet that boat companies (specifically Tige) were going to be leaving PCM and going with Indmar. When I bought my boat, I addressed this with the dealer just to make sure my PCM would still be serviceable... get parts etc. During my boat buying experience I asked why Tige was switching from PCM to Indmar after all the good success they've had with PCM. The answer was, eventually there was going to be a supply issue.

I went home and did my own research.... internet and talking to my friends who are gear heads and I was able to find lots of good info on the supply issue. Obviously GM and their 350 block have been a marine basic forever so they have a whole crap ton of them. Now the supply is getting low and GM has chosen not to produce them anymore. PCM had no clear cut plan on what they were going to do with their motor base once there were no more production GM 350's. PCM told companies like Tige this exact thing..... we don't have a plan right now. Essentially that's why the move to Indmar was done, because Indmar had a plan to move to a new product.

I know lots of people are upset about the Ford move and some love it but the move was essentially and must because they had to. Your gonna have lots of boat manufacturers having changes on motor manufacturers. The reveal was done in a Supra... they are gonna have to do it to. All of them are.... the GM 350 is done as a marine application.

Ill jump in on both sides of diesel debate as well.

The only thing I'm gonna say about GM is that Issuzu is a tride and true diesel technology producer. It was smart of them to partner with a company that has so much experience and R&D in the diesel market. Saying that, it doesn't compare to the design/reliability/power potential of a Cummins.

Dodge's are a great product and they sell trucks because of the Cummins. I know there are a lot of die hard dodge fans here so ill preface my comments. I think the Dodge product is great but without the Cummins product GM and Ford would demolish it (the heavy duty market), the hemi is a great motor. There have actually been discussions between Cummins and Dodge about Cummins threatening to pull the motor from Dodge. There have also been talks about putting it in Fords if that were to happen.

Ford had certainly had issues with their diesels. Ford and International (now Navistar) have butted heads for years over the power stroke. Navistar has basically refused to make changes Ford has wanted in the motor for a number of years and you have all seen what has happened, the motors have had issues. Ford cut ties with Navistar and the newest motor's in Ford trucks were all built in house and run a lot better.

I don't know what is in the future for a diesel application in a boat but lets cross our fingers! The power possibilities would be awesome!

[Wickedcummins]

LoL I dont think it would HURT Dodge one bit if cummins was no longer in them. Being Fiat Motors has an AMAZING large Displacement Diesel they could install into them and there has been talk about it! And over seas that's all people want in a diesel!

[Wickedcummins]

Fiat Inline Diesel engines are Twin turbo..OOOOOO game changing lol... The engine they are talking about maybe putting in the trucks is 550hp and 1240ftlbs STOCK =) GAME CHANGING lol.. I personally would like to see them drop cummins and bring us FIat large diesel engines.. Cummins is old new and they need to pay attention and get into the world of Factory Twins or compounds!

[Wickedcummins]

THey have a pretty bad *** marine engine too... This would be SICK in a boat.. Stupid amounts of torque

[wired1236]

I 100% agree with you. Everyone I knew that had older boats with the 351 said it was the best engine they ever had in a boat. Ford is light years ahead of everyone else in the industry for engine technology.

If people want to complain about an engine the new LS series 5.3s now can burn up to 1 quart per 1000 miles and GM claims that as acceptable and not a warranty item. Also GM has tons and tons of failures in the 3.6L V6. With that being said Im not sure if I would choose the GM 6.2l or the Ford 6.2L. I believe the GM 6.2l (atleast in automotive) has a better torque curve.

Have had experience with the 5.3L too.

I have two Chevy engines and a Ford. Currently, the 2007 5.3L and my 2006 5.7L Chevy's have had more issues than my 2007 5.4L Ford but you don't see me bashing Chevy over it (here anyway) because it's not enough to draw from just a few experiences. I don't really claim to be that loyal to either and have had issues with both manufactures. So someone back this crap up with unbiased statistics. Otherwise it's all blahh...blahh...blahh.

Anyone want to now talk about Yankees and Redsoxs?

[Z3CO23]

THey have a pretty bad *** marine engine too... This would be SICK in a boat.. Stupid amounts of torque

That's awesome. I hadn't heard anything about the Fiat motor. Sweet!

[JohnnieMo]

Maybe I was a bit naive starting this thread! I didn't think it would devolve quiet as it has.

Wicked - Didn't you say you weren't posting in this thread anymore??? j/k

I have run a couple boosted LS engines. An LS1 and a 5.3L (Vortec 5300). I have never had a single issue with either and I really like the simplicity of the design.

Although I prefer the GM, mostly just from my own positive experiences, I don't assume Ford will be dreadful. I do however assume that there will be growing pains, as there are with anything new. Much like guys like the PCM over the Indmar, I'm sure guys will prefer the GM to the Ford. I for one am happy to have a PCM 343 with the GM small block

This IS good for the industry though, as competition is always good for the consumer. I didn't know GM had announced a discontinuation of the 350 though.... that obviously triggered this. However these boat engine manufacturers already use the 6L and 6.2L. There is no reason they can't bring in the 5.3L.

As a side note, I don't think Ecoboost is the way to go. Boats work a lot harder for longer durations than most trucks. You may as well take the displacement and use it. If you are running boost all the time just to cruise, you won't save any fuel, and we all like the extra ballast anyways! Complexity costs money.

[dom w. forte]

As I said earlyer its easy to make rash statements with nothing to back it up , I think its fine to have a brand that you like better , my problem is bashing with harsh statements such as POS, I could right a book about the problems with Chevy , Ford and Chrysler because everyone has had there acchiles heal , oh by the way I have always been a major supporter of the big three, but not anymore because of the bailout and where that money went, but I still own my 1994 dodge ram van with the 5.9l motor , why because the Hemi wont pull as much load as my 360, also owned several Chevys and Fords and all served well , so you can blow all the hot air you want, but we work on all brands of boats and cars and trucks and we havent seen the so called issues that have been described , I havent owned any brand that I havent driven 400,000 plus miles on an oringinal unbuilt engine with good maintenece, my current 94 has 300,000, I currently have no engines in service with less then 150,000 .

[Wickedcummins]

Im working on facts.. My ford guys says he has tons of pics of failed 6.2 Waiting on the pics and I will post =)

[Timmy!]

Am I reading into this too much when I guess that the reason the LS platform isn't being used instead is due to the lack of low end torque? I know I got rid of my Avalanche with the 5.3L for this reason. Plenty of power at the top end but getting there was painful.

[JohnnieMo]

Am I reading into this too much when I guess that the reason the LS platform isn't being used instead is due to the lack of low end torque? I know I got rid of my Avalanche with the 5.3L for this reason. Plenty of power at the top end but getting there was painful.

Sounds to me like the reason is a lack of supply. I know the LS1 had more torque than the LT1 it replaced. In fact it had more power across the entire band. I do agree that the 5.3L is a rev happy engine with poor low end grunt - at least on those heavy Avalanches. The funny thing is, overhead cams is supposed to address high end horsepower while in fact the pushrods seem to be doing that just fine.

A block is just a block at the end of the day. The powerband mostly comes from the heads, and I'm not sure how Indmar or PCM are different in that regard. The Vortec 5300 in the Avalanche is designed for fuel economy moreso than a boat engine, so it sorta sucks.