Inline Diesels are the most powerful....

[Tough Guy]

Don't believe me?

Look right HERE (http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/)

Chris

[markrinker]

Too cool.

You gotta love building an engine big enough to take your lunch breaks inside one of the cylinders. :D

I had the opportunity to ride a 750' taconite ore boat from Duluth up to Silver Bay, MN. This boat had two inline 12 cylinder diesels, and if memory serves, ~20,000 gallons of fuel capacity. The twin props were 8' in diameter - small in comparison to the aforementioned boat.

I was told it burned approximately 1 gallon of diesel every ships length (750') under power. This would still yield a cruising range of 2840 miles - not bad, but don't use my credit card when you fill up.

As I was decending the stairway into the engine room, there was a large 8' round 'tank' with 3' diameter pipe running vertically past the steps, wrapped in shiny metallic insulating material. I assumed it was a heat exchanger of sorts - turns out it was the MUFFLER and exhaust stack for the beasts....

[rjschoolcraft]

This website gets posted here about once every six or seven months. It is still interesting.

[ToddMeister]

Yeah, I never get bored looking at those huge monsters. :D

[D-max Man]

This is the biggest one I get work with:

Click on the 8000 series

http://www.mtu-friedrichshafen.com/en/frameset/f_prdi.htm

[David Proske]

I have often wondered..... how do they start one of those monster engines?

[D-max Man]

I've seen electric and air driven starters used on MTU products, I'm not sure what this monster uses but it only runs at 100 RPM so it shouldn't be too hard to get it up to speed.

[Tsckey]

They must buy Plastigauge by the mile.

TC