Twin Turbo Big Block Marine Chryslers - 440 M&W Ge

So Ive been trying to get these bought for a few months...found them on the craigslist in lake of the ozarks while looking for a 440 marine engine as a platform for the twin turbo kit I got from Bill K on ccfan a few years ago. They finally got pulled out of the 42 foot cruiser they originally came in this week so I rented me a truck and got down there on the double qUick.



Got the on a couple cradles and loaded into the rental


There was a little squat but thats 880 cubic inches of cool



2100 miles and 45 hours round trip and they are back in the shop ...












So there is a right and a left, in theory they are both running engines and basically complete, no final plans on what boats are going to end up in or if the left one is going to stay left handed

Great score! Are those air boxes fit over an ordinary AFB?

WOW !!!!!!!!!!! You are going to have to widen and raise the dog house.

Nice find. Very fitting you used a Mopar truck to pick up those Mopar Motors. No pressure, but we are expecting some winter eye candy on this project.

Very Cool Joe, I love these rare odd ball set ups.

Joe,
Very interesting to say the least!! Fill us in when you come up with more specifics on what you think you'll do with them.

A little more info, M&W Gear advertised and sold kits to convert to twin turbo many popular inboard motors from the early 70s through the mid eighties. They advertised them as increasing power and fuel economy, with increases in hp between 15 and 20% over stock. M&W was more well known for turbo kits for tractors, where the increased hp could increase productivity and sold relatively well. I have seen probably a dozen M&W turbo tractors at tractor shows over the years and many more online but the only 3 marine sets I have ever seen in person are all in my shop right now, online searching has shown a few others being traded at some point.   I suspect they sold a fair amount of them over years, maybe more to big relatively underpowered cruisers like the one these came out of, not too many of those make it onto the boat show circuit.

I’ve the one set from Bill for a few years now, it has a much cleaner elbow setup for the turbos than these, and I have found the original patent drawings online that show most of the plumbing but figuring out the oiling circuit and the best way to get boost referenced fuel to the carb and whether or not the carb had been significantly changed was probably going to cause a breakdown or two along the way – getting two running ones completely setup should eliminate a bunch of the learning curve. These are pretty common rajay turbos, M&W gave them water jacketed housings and added the plumbing for exhaust/air/oil. I think I have all the hard to get parts ( will still need another healthy 440 bottom end) to make 3 RH twin turbo 440s in my possession at this point,

The turbos will drop down at least 4 inches on these ones, the other kit will keep them lower than the carb box and inside of the manifolds.   Goals for this year is to assess internal health and probably drop one or both into an ugly but functional 20ft 73 marauder and see if they run out. Long term the one I keep is intended to end up in a blue 1970 19ft marauder that right now needs everything.   

JoeinNY wrote: Long term the one I keep is intended to end up in a blue 1970 19ft marauder that right now needs everything.

Come on, Joe! The Marauder 19 will be plenty happy with a stock 440....I was hoping you'd say we'll get to see a twin screw, twin turbo Buckskin Beauty at the 2020 SJRR!!

Kidding aside, nice find. Thanks for having the patience and persistence to chase down these rare projects and educating us common folk. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

baitkiller wrote: Joe could have at least of these lit up and running just fine in his driveway by the weekend. Maybe both.

I thought about it, but its too cold and I would have to rewinterize them. These engines were in a boat running 7 days ago so the hope is that there is minimal work to get them up and going. There are just a couple small projects to clear out of the garage at the moment, then I would like to do a compression/leakdown test on these engines before giving any thought to the next steps...

Good find

Very big cool-factor project. I haven’t heard Rajay since I worked on aircraft engines in the early 80’s. You’ve got some very rare iron there. It would be fun to see the end product. Love those old Mopar big blocks. They were fun to sit behind in all of those 70’s Darts, Demons and Coronets we had in our family.

Carb in box Bruce. Carburetors operate based on atmospheric pressure. If you were applying more pressure to the venturi of the carburetor and not the other points that leak air it would throw the pressure/vacuum differential out of wack and make them not operate.

Joe said these kits were to increase operating efficiency and increase power at operating speeds. Turbos generally dont increase low end a ton because they need some exhaust flow and load to get spun up then the power comes. Modern turbos get around the lag pretty handily but likely not these.

I can’t wait to hear one of them go WOT under load and hear the turbos come online. I would imagine the turbos probably run out of steam up top but the acceleration when they light will be fantastic. Probably motors for a nice big prop.   

When the setup was in my marauder they just put a boost gauge on the dash in the right hand corner under the windshield. Not ideal as far as eye appeal but I'm sure it was fun to look at!

For sure there will be a boost guage somewhere...

Some old docs....

Oooo, Cat 3208 motors.