Perkins Sabre diesels

MapisM

MapisM

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Looking for any informed view, 'cause I know nothing abot them.
Good or bad, pros, cons, things to check, assistance network... anything, really.
I'm particularly interested in the 6 cylinders - 6 liters (power ranging from 215 to 300 HP, with a couple of versions in between).
Thanks in advance!
 
These units were marinised by Sabre following the demise of the Ford cargo units, the Ford varients have been around since the 70's and are still going in lot's of boats, they are easy to fix and maintain, the Perkins engines likewise have been around for ages as well, I would not have expected Sabre to have jumped in to Perkins without looking very closely at the opposition, therefore I am sure you will not go far wrong with their present chosen base engine. I know of many such equipped boats and they give very little trouble, and like our Ford's cost very little for spares.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I would not have expected Sabre to have jumped in to Perkins without looking very closely at the opposition

[/ QUOTE ]I must have missed that story. When/how/why did that happen?
Down here in the med I can't remember of one single (leisure) boat equipped with such engines...
 
Sabre signed up with Perkins when Ford pulled the rug by selling their European truck division to IVECO, and shut down the Brazilian Ford engine plant and switched to engines from Cummins. Only source of Ford Dover engines was from Otosan in Turkey.

The Perkins Sabre engines were never regarded in the same light as Ford Sabre, yes very much better smoke levels, however the engines do not have anything like Ford Sabre urge.

We re powered an Omega 828 which had a pair of very old Sabre 212's. New Sabre engines which were supposed to be over twenty horsepower more. This was an expensive exercise The boat went two knots slower than the old Fords and had trouble getting over the hump.

First Sabre blamed the propeller maker. The propeller man said he had come across this before and that the published power curve was on artificially cold fuel so they would never make the published power.

Sabre came out to check the engines and the guy was a real old timer who said out-right that other than the low smoke the engines were no replacement for the Fords.

As it turned out this engineer had come out of the Sabre development shop. The man said that the engines worked fine in barges and commercial boats, but but even then had problems with major customers in Holland who objected to the dry turbo which he also hated.

Sussex Trading Standards have a dossier of complaints on the Perkins Sabre and when threatened legal action our new engines went back and were replaced with higher horsepower ratings of the same engines on condition that the legal action was dropped.

Now Perkins and Sabre are both owned by CAT who badge the only one of the six cylinder engines which meets IMO emissions standards.
 
Very interesting, many thanks.
I'm surprised to hear about their new engines not delivering what they promise, though.
Their 6 cylinder/6 liters block comes in a choice of 4 versions:
215 and 225 HPs (both with compression ratio of 16.0:1)
265 and 300 HPs (both 17.5:1)
All of them spinning at a max rpm of 2,500.
Now, even considering the more stretched one, 300 HPs out of 6 liters should be easy peasy for a modern turbocharged and aftercooled engine.
In comparison, VP gets 435 HPs out of the D6: a 5.5 liters block with the same 17.5:1 compression ratio.
OK, they make it at a much more stretched 3,500 rpm, but the very same engine at 2,500 rpm already delivers 370 HPs or so, according to their curves.
/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
The phaser uint as its known is a very reliable unit but its only 285hp max though its badged as a 300hp, its cheap on parts, filters are available anywhere, the impellers are jabsco at 30.00 each max.

Dont run them too hot though as the heat exchangers on the small side.

The only major fault ive ever had to repair was the oil cooler, its cooled by the closed circuit, the sandwich constuction has 2 gaskets sealing water to oil pressure and they can fail pumping oil into the ater then you think the head gaskets gone when actually its hasnt.
 
Lets go back to basics,

Perkins Phaser uses pretty much the same crank as the old Perkins 6.354 so the base design was compromised from the start due to skinny bearing areas. Good when the crank was designed about 1958 but not in line with modern standards.

The Phaser design also has a torsional issue due to the gear driven water pump which prevents it spinning at more than 2500 rpm. The design limitations have meant that the engine is left in a bit of a time warp. The Sabre 225 uses a Bosch VE rotary pump. The 265 and 300 used a Bosch MW in-line pump, this pump is no longer produced. Perkins use non proprietary copy of the MW from the Far East. My pump shop has nothing good to say about the parts availably of this later pump.

Cannot bear any comparison with the far more modern Volvo D6. Higher specific power per litre is not big deal. Volvo 110 mm stroke gives a piston speed of 12.8 M/sec which is no big deal. Perkins is not hugely slower at 10.6 M/sec.

Producing a certain power at a higher engine speed is often better, leading to a lower brake mean effective pressure.

The Perkins Sabre six cylinder motors have proved reliable but a little uninspiring. Now that is illegal to sell them in the U.S. as they do not meet Tier II emissions I would suspect that they will soon be replaced by a common rail Perkins 1100 series.
 
>Producing a certain power at a higher engine speed is often better, leading to a lower brake mean effective pressure.<

But at the expense of engine wear and a higher specific fuel consumption, something that everyone is going to get more interested in very soon.

However concur generally. In my experience, Perkins phaser generally is a cooking engine with no frills and is pretty reliable, although cooling can be marginal, specially on the 4 cyl.
Don't know about marinised Sabres though, only the phaser automotive / plant versions.
Does the sabre still have the awful ally finned oil cooler bolted to the right side of the block?
If so, check for coolant leaks - often.
 
[ QUOTE ]
The Sabre 225 uses a Bosch VE rotary pump. The 265 and 300 used a Bosch MW in-line pump, this pump is no longer produced

[/ QUOTE ]Do you mean that the rotary pump is better/more reliable?
The 215 and 225 versions, more oriented to continuous duty, are the ones I'm more interested in.
And reliability, together with reasonable consumption and maintenance costs are my highest priorities.
 
We have twin Perkins Sabre 225Ti 's and they have been exemplary in the 5 years we have had the boat. Other than some dirty diesel probs they have been completely reliable and completely smokeless. parts availlabilty is good and so are prices. Would agree with comments on the cooling though. at WOT speeds they run too hot and will only maintain flat out revs for 20 mins or so before you need to throttle back.
I was concerned about this when i first aquired the boat and had the cooling system checked over and all was fine. engineer said this was quite common and just to avoid WOT and they will be fine. he also said that in his experience the 225 ti's were virtually bombproof.
 
But at the expense of engine wear and a higher specific fuel consumption, something that everyone is going to get more interested in very soon.

Piston speed and engine wear are no longer have a linear link with the use of modern materials and manufacturing. Regardless of make modern engines will be designed for a B50 life of at least 10,000 hours plus or an equivalent in terms of gallons of fuel burnt. In the leisure boat market wear out of the base motor is a non issue. The marinising parts suffer from 'marine aging' and failure long before the sees any normal wear. Last time I looked the CAT C18 sets the piston speed record, has it been suggested that this is not a durable motor?

Likewise engine speed is not necessarily the measure of how fuel efficient an engine is. The type of injection system and turbo machinery are far more relevant then engine speed. A modern high speed say 3,500 rpm engine with HPCR will always be more fuel efficient than a 2,500 rpm engine using 30 year old low pressure pump line injectors.

The Bosch VE pump is a a great piece of kit, still in production. However it has a power limit of not much over 200 Hp. The Bosch MW was needed for higher outputs. This pump has now been dropped leading to the replacement by a copy manufactured by a far less well known fuel system supplier and storing up problems for the future.

If you are looking a continuous output do not bother looking at the Perkins Sabre site, done by marketing people not engineers and in the U.S you would get your ass sued off. Look for the CAT 3156 on their site, actually the Sabre 225, which proper engine curves showing actual continuous ratings.

Most modern engines are reliable IF PROPERLY INSTALLED.

If you want low noise no smoke and low operating costs look at HPCR engines from Cummins, Deere or say IVECO. If you want a sound robust reliable engine at low end pricing look at Daewoo, fishermen swear by them.

Seems like you have already made your mind up, however all the above engines tick more of your boxes than Perkins Sabre.
 
You missed the point of my answer in dealing with engine speeds. I merely meant that any marinised diesel, be it common rail, VG turbo'd or not, having relatively a small number of unit sales, is something of a lash up or maybe a better word would be compromise.

The engine when it was on the designers screen was probably intended for automotive / industrial use and the invisaged RPM range for max torque would be in the region of 2 - 2.500 rpm.

In a boat running the same engine, albeit with different injection / cam profiles, at 3500 rpm, you got a theoretical 7200 litres / min more air passing through *, which needs to be heated and ultimately 55 - 60% of this extra energy goes to waste.

Likewise the marine engine is turning 30% faster and is probably wearing out even quicker, although I take your point that very aggressive operating conditions are the main enemy of any boat engine.

Just pointing out that the marinised diesel could never be as efficient or long lasting as its slower revving automotive father, or indeed the same marinised base engine optimised for automotive speeds, this downfall in a large part due to its higher operating speeds.

*assuming a cylinder fill of 120% of swept volume.
 
I've had an M225Ti, was a great engine with very little smoke.

The issue over Sabre selling the engines badged with HP ratings they dont meet has been well appraised in this thread already.

If you take this into account and plan your HP requirements and select accordingly then its a good engine. I'm not sure how it compares on price to the other options.

Certinaly it cant be compared to more modern engines, its been around a long time and was not new design when launched.

If you want a 2500 revving 6 litre go to Mermaid.
 
I forgot to add, check out the performance tab on the perkins website, the graph shows the rela out put they achieve, I think also there could be a tolereance on the HP acheived of +/- 10%, so a M225Ti, really a 204hp, could worst case be pulling a little over 180!!
 
You are quite correct yes the weasel words of 'fully run in engine to a production tolerance' used to be on the bottom right hand corner of the Perkins Sabre spec sheet. I did not want to lob that one in as it would give the impression that I was being less than objective, however for most manufacturers the standard production tolerance is normally plus or minus 5%. I think this was added after Hampshire Trading Standards got on their case.

I am an old fart who served his time on 1800 rpm Gardner engines and went to sea in ships with 105 rpm Doxford and Sulzers in the 1960's, however I believe in progress.

Now I like diesel engines which are totally smoke free, quiet, reliable and fuel efficient. This only means one thing, HPCR
 
Thanks everybody, some very useful stuff here.
I'm going to post a new similar thread on a VP engine, any feedback as always appreciated!
 
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