What Is the Difference Between Marine Motors and Car Motors?

If you’re fixing up your boat, you might be thinking about replacing your old marine motor with a new one. As you look at the engines on the market, you might notice that automobile motors are often cheaper than marine motors. So are they interchangeable? And if not, what is the difference between marine motors and automobile motors? Here’s what you should know before you get a new motor for your boat.

Marine Motors Can Resist Corrosion

One of the most important differences to know is that marine motors are meant to withstand a constantly wet environment. This means all the parts on them can resist the corrosion that comes from being underwater. So the head gaskets, freeze plugs, valve guides, and other motor parts have to be made of corrosion resistant materials. That’s not a common requirement on car engines, though, which are meant for dry environments. This means the two types of engines are not exactly interchangeable.

Marine Engines Are Heavy Duty

A car engine typically only uses a portion of its horsepower to maintain a decent speed on the road. On the other hand, a marine engine is essentially at full throttle all the time just to move it through the water, so it has to be pretty heavy duty to keep up. This is why the camshaft of a marine motor is built to use as much low-end torque as possible, rather than high RPM horsepower like a car engine. Essentially, a marine engine has just one gear compared to the four or more that a car engine has. This is another major difference between marine motors and car motors.

A Marine Motor’s Major Components Differ from a Car Engine’s

You should also keep in mind that the alternator, distributor, and starter in a marine engine are all different from the ones in a car engine. In a marine engine, these all have special screens that can extinguish internal sparks so they don’t light the gas fumes in the boat’s engine area after venting into the atmosphere. If you try using a motor that doesn’t have these screens, you risk damaging your boat and creating a dangerous situation for anyone nearby.

Boat Motors Are Used Less Often

Typically, a car gets used every day, or at least several times per week. This is good for the engine, battery, and other components, since they often lose power or generally become weaker when they sit unused for too long. But many people don’t take their boat out nearly as often as they drive their car, so it makes sense that marine motors are not built to be used the same way as car engines. This is why you can’t simply use a car engine in place of a boat engine.

Marine Motors Come in a Few Varieties

So now you can see that there’s enough of a difference between marine motors and car motors that they’re not interchangeable. That means you should prepare to buy a marine motor for your boat. But which one should you buy? This requires you to learn the differences between the most common types of marine motors.

First, there’s the outboard motor, which is especially popular on fishing boats and pleasure boats. The outboard motor is self-contained, with the propeller, engine, and steering control all in one unit that attaches to the back wall of the boat. This is convenient because you can lift the whole unit out of the water when you winterize your boat. This type of marine motor usually features 2 or 3 cylinders, though you can find it in V-6 and V-8 varieties, as well. Typically, this motor uses the power of jet propulsion to move the boat.

Another popular option is the inboard motor, which uses gas or diesel fuel to get the power it needs. With inboard motors, the rudder, shaft, and propeller go underneath or inside the boat. With this type of marine engine, you’ll typically get 4 or 6 cylinders, much like you would with a car engine. That’s why this type of engine is typically considered more powerful than outboard motors.

Of course, the marine motor you choose should be the one that best fits your boat and all its components. So just as with your car, you should read your owner’s manual before choosing the best engine for it. Regardless of the marine motor you choose, you can come to Gold Eagle for all the marine products you need for your boat!