does anybody know if these are good engines? i always see them on ebay , would they have been properly built? and will they withstand being put in a coach? thanks for any input, ken
i'd try to locate a new Crate Military engine rather than a rebuild.
there are things to change to make it into on road configurations so it is not a direct drop in.
I saw one of those a while back and asked a Knut about it as the Mil was really reasonably priced. The info I got was that the Military had 71's for old Mil trucks and that that item could be converted. Seems they also use the 71 in Armored vehicles and that guy puts out 7 or 800 HP and needs an enormous radiator that our bus won't carry. Another version needs only a tiny heat exchanger and puts out 900HP(or some big number) but it is a Navy item and it needs the ocean to feed that tiny heatexchanger. He said some of the versions had really low compression ratios as they were intended to run with "wild" turbos and that they needed starting fluid injectors to get lit. I have absolutely no independent knowledge on this. The one I saw had what looked to be "headers" wrapping around the engine and out the rear where you would expect a trans and I was told that that was a "tank" engine. If you have to tear it down and can't use the pistons and sleeves, it isn't much of a bargain but the usable truck engines must be out there. You need the Federal Stock Numbers (FSN) of the items that are usable/convertable.
Background BS,
John
Mccaarlk if you can do the work yourself and get a good buy with 0 hrs on the engine they are not bad deal you need to change the bell housing,block plate,injectors,turbo and remove the air heaters under the blower or just use the parts. your block may not have the same size liners,if the engine has hours on it I would pass
Ken;
I have bought several of these over the years and have found that if they have S injectors you need to pull the air box cover and see how many compression rings are on the piston. some of these high hp military engines had four compression rings, and either the scwhitzer the early air research or the old T18A40 or 80 turbo and that set up won't work very well out on the road. If you have the where with all to reconfigure the engine they do make good core engines.
Hope that helps
Don