Anyone use a marine motor in a car . Mercury, Evinrude etc

I saw a big in-line 165 cubic inch  4 cyl Merc cruiser motor some guy on Tiktok had

I wonder if there are any other interesting Marine motors that might be a "sleeper" street motor , 

Maybe even Volvo , Renault and other odd marine motors.

The 165 ci Mercury motor used a Ford 460 head , pistons and rods in a special Aluminum block......

Not exactly a sleeper but a v8 2-stroke Amazon sounds like fun. 

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/motorsport/video-mad-two-stroke-v8-drag-car-wants-destroy-eardrums

In reply to californiamilleghia :

Aren't Mercury's just cammed up high compression fords?

3/4 Midgets back in the day commonly used outboard engines.

I found a thread on the HAMB about marine engined hotrods. I for some reason I can't find it again. They look really good in a traditional rod.

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to californiamilleghia :

Aren't Mercury's just cammed up high compression fords?

When I worked at MerCruiser I think most if not all were GM based. At least the V8 and V6 engines I remember working on/writing for. 

A million years ago one of the guys at work put a Mercury marine outboard in a Berkeley car. I never saw it but he told me about it.

On the other side of the column - I was working at Lake Perry when I saw a little speedboat being launched from the nearby boat ramp, bright green metal flake paint and big headers curving up over the back of the boat - sounded mean as hell when he started it up and idles out to clear water where he gave it the beans - and shifted gears - twice!

Boats don't usually have gearboxes!

So, years later I was telling the guy with the Mercury outboard in the Berkeley about it and his co-worker came up, heard me describing the boat and pulled a pic out of his wallet - "is this the boat?" he said. It was - he said it was his and had a VW beetle motor and gearbox in it! Very strange thing to hear a boat wind out like that, then shift and go again!

In reply to californiamilleghia :

That was Mercury Marine’s answer to replace the Chevy 250 inline 6 for the 165 HP range.  They had different versions, one was 170 HP (Model 470) and another was 185 HP (485), my Dad had a 485 in his ‘81 Century.  

Mercury cast their own aluminum blocks with cast iron cylinder sleeves and the cylinder head was from a 460 Ford.   Because of the aluminum blocks a closed cooling system with a heat exchanger was used to keep raw water out of the block cooling passages. Other oddities included a stator type alternator driven directly off the crankshaft (basically the same as their outboard motors) and a water cooled voltage regulator that was a supreme PITA to get to when they failed. (Got to do that job a couple of times.)

At 3.7 L / 225 cubic inches it was pretty big for a 4 banger and it wasn’t the smoothest at idle.  His ran well for a long time and was good on gas as boats go.  As far as using any boat engine in a car remember that they’re typically tuned for torque not high RPM.   Most are set up so maximum recommended RPM is 4,400-4,800 RPM, not exactly race car revs.

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to californiamilleghia :

Aren't Mercury's just cammed up high compression fords?

I see what you did there. 

In reply to MiniDave :

A boat having a gearbox doesn't really make sense considering different props are setup for different RPM ranges.

Sonthats pretty bizarre.

In reply to 11GTCS :

Actually you saw it and I did not!

Didn't somebody put a marine motor in a Fiero a few years back?

z31maniac said:

In reply to MiniDave :

A boat having a gearbox doesn't really make sense considering different props are setup for different RPM ranges.

Sonthats pretty bizarre.

I guess it's an easy way to get reverse?
https://youtu.be/epFPiO4WLdY

One of my friends had one of those flat bottom drag style boats with a 455 in it, he had a basic car 3 speed automatic mounted in the front, with the output shaft directly into one of those angle drives and a shaft back and down thru the hull. He said it let him cruise at fairly high speeds without having the motor wound out - got way better mileage because of it and the boat pulled the higher gears just fine. Said it was great for a hole shot in low gear then upshift and not having to listen to the motor scream all day. 

I don't remember if it ran the torque converter or not, but I don't think it did......

Not super helpful but I found the HAMB thread