Keel cooler, dry exhaust advice

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Blackbadger

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Dear all,

I am after some advice before I spend any more money as ife got to a point trying to decide what's best.

I have an unfinished project and advised by the builder to put a keel cooler in. This has been completed. I have a ford lehman 120hp which, second hand has all the ancillary bits, jabsco pump, heat exchanger already set up for a raw water feed.

Before I go any further, having already purchased a dry exhaust, my options are,

1, go back to the original specifications and remove the keel cooler bearing in mind the sea cock is already in place for raw water feed for oil cooler. Replace the manifold and fit a wet exhaust.

2, combine the 2, wet exhaust and keel cooler

3, go all keel cooler, further explore how to reroute existing cooling syster and install a dry exhaust.

My dilemmas are not financial as things purchased (exhaust etc) I'll regrettably put these down to a learning curve, also may get some money back by selling.

My boat is all steel 40 foot and has enough room in engine room for dry exhaust.

Does anyone have any thoughts or sound advice please?

Thanks in anticipation.
 
By keel cooler do you mean pipes running under the boat in the water or do you mean a skin tank attached to the swim?
If the latter you will struggle to cool a 120hp engine as the skin tank will be massive, somewhere in the region of 30sqft (engine horsepower/4). I would go as designed with a heat exchanger/wet exhaust then you know it will work.
Having said that Parglena my old barge had a hybryd system for its Ford 120 , it was a normal heat exchanger system but the water exited from the exchanger directly overboard and there was a dry exhaust / silencer fitted to take the gasses away. The exhaust did get very hot in this configuration.

My present boat has a 50hp beta and this origionally had a skin tank of about 8sqft this proved to be inadequate so now has proper indirect heat exchanger cooling and wet exhaust.
 
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Yes meaning pipes under the boat. I've plummeted for the wet exhaust as I have the same concerns regarding heat, especially the oil cooler for the velvet drive gear box. Also the heat from the exhaust. Needless to say have added some items to my shopping list and reinstall the heat exchanger unit in the bowman.

Must admit I'm happier as I didn't like the concept of changing pipe sizes just to fit and sure that this would have altered the thermal dissipation.

Simplest is best and a wet exhaust is much easier to fit too..

Thanks for the advice ☺
 
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