I have just purchased this engine for a song, I have sold some of the marinising gear already
I have always wanted a 4 banger and have owned many newer ones. This is a Mercruiser 170 engine. It a 4 cylinder 3.7L (224in³) engine built by Mercury marine, it uses a 460 ford head pistons and rods mounted to a aluminium block. The bellhousing pattern is chev minus one hole. There is plenty of them being used on the road and racing in the USA. see this thread https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/thr ... 713/page-1
I have checked the Street Rod manual online and it seems to fit the criteria.
Hi Brock. It’s an internal combustion engine. Go for it. Would be an interesting conversion and one which I’m sure you would be more than capable of pulling off. PS like the Jeep. Regards Steve.
Mercrusier were going to supply these to Ford but the was a disagreement on naming so it was axed. If anyone has a good ali head for a Ford big block I may be interested.
If using a marine engine I would make sure that the cooling is sorted before going too far
It may have water cooled exhaust etc. which helps take heat out of the engine
There is lots of available cold water available in the sea, lakes and river - but limited and hotter in a car ...
All the hard work has been done. The HAMB has a 64 page thread for running these in hotrods. The cooling system and the charging system in the marine application were the big issue which is easily changed. The watre pump runs off the front of the cam throught two seals which led to water leaking into the engine when they failed and the tell tale was ignored or plugged thinking it was a leak, I will be mounting a remote water pump and run it off the crank. The intake manifold can be drilled for water out the top of the head but Mercruiser modified the Ford head with a tube glued in the front of the head about 40mm round but it copmes out in a iffy spot. The charging system uses a stator and rotor with a water cooled regulator which used to fail on a regular basis. All things easily fixed. One chap on the thread has also managed to close the top of the deck with a waterjet cut ali plate welded in and then put a Jon Kasse style Boss 9 head on it. A racer in Europe somewhere has a turbo monster. Randy Dupree who has put a wealth of info on the thread run on at 186mph on the salt. Should be fun I reckon and they sound awesome. A 190hp version came with a 4 barrel manifold and a quadrajet on it. I was originally going to build a 3l chev engine but had some issues finding a cheap block that was useable and this come up cheap and is a Ford
I have come in contact with a range of boat engines a fair bit in my time. In my opinion salt water it is just a hostile environment for an engine - poor things
Clearly you have done the research and have the smarts to get this going and running reliably on terra firma however, will you have any issues over in WA registering a vehicle powered with it?
Looking forward to see how it all turns out
Cheers Turns
"Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly"...............Morticia Addams
Slightly different, a 3 litre Mercruiser is very similar to a Chevy11 four cylinder and also similar to a Fontana Chevy, often used in speedway stuff.
Your motor should be a cool unit for a different rod. Have fun.
Remember this life is a test. If it had been a real life you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do!!!!!
Go for it. Would be an interesting conversion and one which I’m sure you would be more than capable of pulling off. PS like the Jeep. Regards Steve.
