Samurai Marine Diesel Engines

[Mr Googler]

Hi All

I am looking to buy a boat that has twin samurai diesel engines. After asking around Samurai were a company based in Devon who bought GM 6.5l v8 diesel engine blocks and marinised them.

The engines look very well being 3 years old and having 200 hours on them. Lots of shiney bits so they must be OK!!!!!!!

The current owner reports no problems at all. I think he's a trustworthy guy (lifeboat coxswain so if hes telling porkies he can come and get me!!!)

Just wondered if anyone has had any experience with these engines. They are coupled to VP 290 legs. Samurai diesel have gone to the wall so bit worried about spares. The GM parts are easy to get but not sure if they custom made some bits and pieces.

Any tips or advice greatly recieved.

Paul

 

[Scarron]

I'd be very careful before you jump, Samurai had a very 'varied' reputation. I am sure others on here will be along with first hand experience.

 

[Chris_d]

The general advice with Samuri is to run away..very fast. They maybe one of the good conversions, but some bits like exhaust risers are unique to Samuri so unobtainable, also I think there is limit to how much torque a VP290 leg will take, a 6.5litre V8 diesel may find that limit sooner rather than later. If it was me I wouldn't even consider it.

 

[enterprise]

Looked at samurai in the past, even took time to vissit there place to see first hand the process of marinisation.

From what I saw the idea of ever trusting them to do a conversion quickly turned us off the idea.
However I have had the fortunate experience to talk with an owner of a conversion who sourced the basic parts to do the conversion from samurai & did the conversion himself.

The engine was ex military surplus, old stock but never used, the heatexchanger was & samurai fabrication as were the exhaust manifolds, the installation looked very neat as mentioned previous the owner had done the conversion himself so obviously taken some time to get things right.

Might be worth finding out who did the conversion if it was samurai then It's likely to be a heath robinson affair.

The workshop was an old shed in the middle of nowhere, their main trade being converting 4X4's, it looked more like a scrap yard than a slick opperation & Im sure that there demise was inpart due to the image that prospective customers had on arrival.

 

[longjohnsilver]

I met the dad of the chap who owned Samurai and even he said his son was a bit of a rip off merchant, in so many words. Most stories you hear about the engines is not good but one of my best mates son, who is also a marine mechanic, fitted them to his boat and had no problems with them. But I guess he knew what to look out for and how to fix things.

But I would probably run a mile when confronted with these engines. Why take the risk when so many more to choose from.

 

[Kawasaki]

Good advice LJ .
Paul--- Don't

 

[spannerman]

THese engines have a very bad rep in the trade, the crankshaft is a known weakness as this engine wa designed for a truck and not the hard use it gets in a marine installation. Several boats in our location have tried them and all of them were eventually replaced with something designed for the job, so buyer beware!

 

[Latestarter1]

As per Spannerman,

6.5 base engine has electronic pump so they use mechanical fuel pump off the 6.2 wound up, they never produce claimed power.

High lube oil temperature has always been problem in marine applications thats why the crank goes bang.

Very prone to head gasket failure due to people trying to jack up the fueling to get decent power output.

The last time I went to Samurai they were building engines on a dirt floor. Not a quality marinisation.

Boats with this set up are pretty much unsaleable their reputation goes before them.

GM walked away from the engine years ago and replaced applications with an ISUZU V8 which turned out to be only marginally better

 

[malc2]

Lots of urban miths surrounding GM6.2/6.5L diesel.... Cranks busting etc.
The engine itself is not a problem. In fact almost bullitt proof. Where it all fell apart, was the actual conversion/marinsation.
Would not touch a Samurai conversion for all sorts of reasons..... Lack of spares for marinisation items. (some are available off the shelf from the states. But many items would have been fabricated by Samurai here in the UK..... Lots of bodged installations.... Generally speaking Samurai marinsations were cheap messy meccano like bodgies. V290 leg, if in tip top condition more than capable of of handling power/torque. Enigne set up led itself to easier mating to Mercruiser drive than Volvo. Only one proper marine conversion and that was /is Marinediesel.... Never touch a boat with a non standard engine instalation. Maybe it did not start out in life with that set up, but providing the boat builder listed it as an option, then OK. otherwise you could be opening a whole can of (expensive) worms .

 

[Towbarman]

I ran two 300hp Chevy supercharged marine designs for over 20 years nothing wrong with the cranks bullet proof
You need a twin thermostat housing fitting as one head will run hotter than the other with out the mode

 

[Seastoke]

I ran two 300hp Chevy supercharged marine designs for over 20 years nothing wrong with the cranks bullet proof
You need a twin thermostat housing fitting as one head will run hotter than the other with out the mode

Why have you raised this old thread.

 

[Alicatt]

I had a couple of trucks that had 6.2l V8 diseasel engines fitted by Samurai, they were based in Bridgewater in Somerset, I have been at their premises quite a few times during the fitting of the engines to the trucks, this was in the 1980s and later in 1996, it was your typical small operation run out a factory lot in an industrial estate, the conversions of the trucks were ok up to a point, the first truck had a 3l Ford V6 engine from the factory and needed a complete engine and gearbox, with and adapter made to interface it with the transfer box, the other truck which was quite heavier had a 4.2l V8 Chrysler petrol engine in it, the gearbox mated directly with the engine, however the gearbox was not up to the amount of torque that the 6.2 V8 diseasel put out and it could easily chew through the gearbox within a couple of thousand miles. Cooling was the big problem with them, they generate a huge amount of heat and we had to limit the speed of the truck to keep the heat level down, the lad that operated the truck managed to seize it trying to get home at the weekend.

The engines are willing to rev even without a turbo/supercharger on them, the 6.2 would rev to 4000 - 4500rpm, at that it would pull the 5tonne 6x4 truck along at 90mph but over 55mph it would rapidly overheat.