Iveco 750 educated questions here - not a buyer today but in 2-3 years....
1. If it were your boat and your engine and your 100$/hr you were paying to a mechanic to fix stuff - what RPM and horsepower would you run that 750 at to make it last and also perform?
2. All engines have weak spots and components that will wear over time and break if you ignore preventative maintenance. What are the parts of the Iveco to worry about at 3-4 years/1500-2000 hrs?
Hello backman,
We have many of the C13 out in the field with 7-8 years on them at ratings of 500 to 750 Mhp now and all of them are still running. There have only been two rebuilds in that time and one catastrophic failure which occured in 40 hours as an assy. error, which FPT paid for all of the boat work required and down time for the customer. The overhauls were caused by maintenance issues or lack there of and one of them went over 10000 hours before needing an overhaul because of a broken piston ring, however the engine still turned 2200 rpm (2300 rpm rated) with two broken rings, biggest issue was oil consumption. So, with all that being said out of more than 200-250 of these in operation around the U.S. it really depends on the type of work performed and the type of hull the engine is going into. I would say in most cases for most of these boats, their application and hull efficiency that 600-700 hp is going to give you the longest life out of the engine, but I have 700 hp + engines that are 7 years old now that don't miss a beat, one of which won the Winter Harbor Lobster boat race this year in a 40' H&H at over 31 knots.
As for weak spots, it once was the extension harness that was the issue early on, but through quality control that was upgraded and modified and is not an issue any longer. The biggest weakness is probably the bronze impeller pump, if not properly installed so that the sea strainer will fill without priming, the impeller can cavitate and can have early wear. This has only happened on a couple of applications where the sea water intake is not placed correctly in the hull and therefore the lift is too high and the water pump can cavitate in rough seas. We still get 3 years or more out of the impeller but the customer will complain of loss of flow or prime towards the end. The impeller kit is expensive because it is a bronze impeller pump but if properly installed, grounded and zincs replaced regularly, it can go for 6 years without service. In some cases more, you cannot do that with neoprene impeller pumps and cams. I would say that is really the only weakness, the rest is just standard maintenance that any high performance diesel engine today requires, change oil and filters every 300-400 hours, including fuel filters. Change CCV filters before 600 hours. Check and adjust overhead 1 per year of every 2000-3000 hours, which ever comes first. Clean aftercooler core and heat exchanger cores once every 2-3 years depending on hours of use and maintenance habits (CCV filter or coolant type and zinc replacement).
I can tell you that because this is a bed plate style block and because of the overhead cam CGI cylinder head and high performance multilayer steel shim head gasket we don't have a lot of issues with major wear items at all.. The maranization is engineered in FPT as well as the base engine platform... All FPT engines are designed and developed internally and all of them with the understanding that the engine will become a marine engine, not just a truck engine that becomes maranized or an industrial engine that will become maranized. All of the development is done at FPT by the Marine engineering group. This is why CAT has come to FPT for a marine solution also.
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