I’m always dreaming up wild ideas, and I had one for a new breed of high performance personal watercraft – the Tube boat. I want to put a V-8 engine into a very stretched Seadoo-type watercraft, and just use a simple propeller shaft off the back of the engine, with maybe a simple clutch mechanism to engage/disengage the power to the shaft.
Anyway, that all said, I know boats use automobile-type engines, but use special water-cooled exhaust manifolds, etc. What other Boaterizing is done to an automobile engine to make it into a “marine” engine? Any special gimmicks to prevent the corrosion of dissimilar metals inside the motor? If I chose to use a straight car engine, with the watercooled boat manifolds, how long would a motor last without any other mods? Obviously a boat style cooling system as well would be installed . So other than radiator, coolant, and exhaust manifolds, what else would normally be changed?