Velera wrote:
OK, I am not sure where I picked this up, and I am not trying to create legend here, but somewhere in my 23 years of ownership--and perhaps from these pages---I picked up the idea that Tartan bought a large quantity of engines at one time (for cost purposes), stored them, and put them in boats as they built them. As I recall, some of the engines had been stored for some time when installed as noted by their manufacture date.
Perhaps someone from Tartan can comment on this, but the BMC block that was the foundation of the Westerbeke engine (which I understand was actually a British taxi engine) went out of production and they had to find a substitute. Hence, the change.
I am not aware that one engine is better than another. In my experience, diesels last an incredibly long time in terms of hours and years if they are well used (run long distances at a time, not just left or run for a few minutes in an out of the slip or mooring), and aggressively maintained. As you can discover here, all engines have their quirks and maintenance issues--the big ones being how the engine blocks are "marinized". Neither of these engines was designed for marine use and both have a lot of dissimilar metals in the marinization side (heat exchangers, raw water pumps, oil cooler) of the engine. When these fail they take the block with them in overheating or spraying salt water where it does not belong.
I got about 4500 hours and 20 years out of my Westerbeke and think it would have gone a lot further if I hand not left it for a rainy season, idle and not run, in the Panama jungle. I broke a ring on it when I started it up. It ran another 300 hours in that condition, though it burned a bit of oil. The rear crank seals of the Westerbeke have a history of failure as did mine. I always thought that this might be the result of poor alignment maintenance rather than a design flaw in the engine. I think a lot of folks replace engines before they really call for it. But recreational boats that are run for long periods and not aggressively maintained are going to have issues with any diesel.
I replaced mine with a Yanmar just because I liked the cooling design better. The oil cooler is fresh water which eliminates that problem with leaking oil coolers. Also, the heat exhanger is purpose built and part of the engine and does not require zincs. But the issue with quality of any engine is more maintenance than design IMHO.