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Barrus Shire 45 vs. Beta Marine 43


RichM

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I am (again) contemplating a more powerful engine to replace a 16 year old Barrus Shire 30. If I go-ahead at any point I've pretty much narrowed it down to either a Barrus Shire 45 or a Beta Marine 43. I'd be interested to see opinions of them both especially those which take both in comparison.

Given she has a Barrus Shire at the moment, would there be less involved in replacing it with another Barrus Shire rather than one of another make?

Cheers

RichM

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The Beta is based on a Kubota engine, the Barrus in a Yanmar engine.

Both are reputedly good engines.

I only have direct experience of the Beta 43. It is an excellent modern engine, commonly used in small plant equioment (mini-diggers etc).

I have seen boats with 15,000 hours on them and plant equipment with 30,000 hours on them, so they are very reliable.

Pre 2006 Beta 43's with the Travel Power mains alternator option used a Woodruff key to secure the pulley for this to the crankshaft which can cause expensive issues when the keyway wears.  The later ones used a solined crankshaft extension which solves the problem.

 

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Well the big difference is one is direct injection the other indirect.

If price isn't a big factor I would always go for the DI engine.  No glow plugs to worry about, oil change intervals may be longer, and I think they sound better in a boat.

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2 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

Well the big difference is one is direct injection the other indirect.

If price isn't a big factor I would always go for the DI engine.  No glow plugs to worry about, oil change intervals may be longer, and I think they sound better in a boat.

But they may smoke a bit more at light loads/low revs.

Can't work out why being DI or IDI would make a difference to the oil change intervals. If anything the cleaner low speed burn and arguably slower build up to peak pressure in the cylinder may indicate the IDI engine would have longer oil change intervals.

Major advantage is DI engines tend to be much better cold starters even if they do smoke a bit.

The way I would decide would be related to the mariniser's customer service and the ready availability of spares from sources other than the mariniser. I get the feeling that Beta/Kubota may be slightly ahead there. I would also look at "unnecessary" complications of arguable value like the Barrus calorifier thermostat and avoid them.

I note that from a question sent to the magazine forum Barrus recently sent a customer the wrong profile alternator belt and according to the boater did not respond to his request for help. I would say that is more serious then the Beta problem mentioned above because from what I gather Beta have helped at least some customers.

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2 hours ago, cuthound said:

The Beta is based on a Kubota engine, the Barrus in a Yanmar engine.

Both are reputedly good engines.

I only have direct experience of the Beta 43. It is an excellent modern engine, commonly used in small plant equioment (mini-diggers etc).

I have seen boats with 15,000 hours on them and plant equipment with 30,000 hours on them, so they are very reliable.

Pre 2006 Beta 43's with the Travel Power mains alternator option used a Woodruff key to secure the pulley for this to the crankshaft which can cause expensive issues when the keyway wears.  The later ones used a solined crankshaft extension which solves the problem.

 

Pedantic perhaps, but I always understood that Beta cut the extension off - the point of mentioning it is that an earlier engine may have the splines intact. It's easy to check because the splined shaft sticks out in front of the domestic pulley. Beta do a kit to adapt the splines to a flat belt.  

1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

But they may smoke a bit more at light loads/low revs.

Can't work out why being DI or IDI would make a difference to the oil change intervals. If anything the cleaner low speed burn and arguably slower build up to peak pressure in the cylinder may indicate the IDI engine would have longer oil change intervals.

Major advantage is DI engines tend to be much better cold starters even if they do smoke a bit.

The way I would decide would be related to the mariniser's customer service and the ready availability of spares from sources other than the mariniser. I get the feeling that Beta/Kubota may be slightly ahead there. I would also look at "unnecessary" complications of arguable value like the Barrus calorifier thermostat and avoid them.

I note that from a question sent to the magazine forum Barrus recently sent a customer the wrong profile alternator belt and according to the boater did not respond to his request for help. I would say that is more serious then the Beta problem mentioned above because from what I gather Beta have helped at least some customers.

Beta can be helpful - if you're polite. They certainly helped me when my Sea Power drive fell off into the engine bilge. Up to then the engine had done 5,000 hours with two twin row 10 inch cast iron pulleys on - so the basic woodruff key is pretty solid.

Although the Beta is indirect injection (more efficient) it always starts without any heater. In fact using them makes starting more difficult, which I find difficult to understand.

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1 minute ago, OldGoat said:

Pedantic perhaps, but I always understood that Beta cut the extension off - the point of mentioning it is that an earlier engine may have the splines intact. It's easy to check because the splined shaft sticks out in front of the domestic pulley. Beta do a kit to adapt the splines to a flat belt.  

Beta can be helpful - if you're polite. They certainly helped me when my Sea Power drive fell off into the engine bilge. Up to then the engine had done 5,000 hours with two twin row 10 inch cast iron pulleys on - so the basic woodruff key is pretty solid.

Although the Beta is indirect injection (more efficient) it always starts without any heater. In fact using them makes starting more difficult, which I find difficult to understand.

You are absolutely correct. The splined crankshaft extends out of the engine gone to drive the various hydraulic pumps needed on plant equipment, and Beta cut it off on the earlier engines.

As well as easy starting with the Beta engine, I find the oversized sump keeps the oil cleaner for longer than on any other diesel engine I have ever come across.

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7 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

Pedantic perhaps, but I always understood that Beta cut the extension off - the point of mentioning it is that an earlier engine may have the splines intact. It's easy to check because the splined shaft sticks out in front of the domestic pulley. Beta do a kit to adapt the splines to a flat belt.  

Beta can be helpful - if you're polite. They certainly helped me when my Sea Power drive fell off into the engine bilge. Up to then the engine had done 5,000 hours with two twin row 10 inch cast iron pulleys on - so the basic woodruff key is pretty solid.

Although the Beta is indirect injection (more efficient) it always starts without any heater. In fact using them makes starting more difficult, which I find difficult to understand.

Not really, in fact at high speeds they are considerably less efficient fuel consumption wise than direct i9njection engines. In some cases in cars returning close to petrol engines consumption after many hours at now illegal motor way speeds. The faster they run the greater the pumping losses forcing the fresh air through the throat into the pre-combustion chamber in an ever decreasing time. However this has little relevance to inland boat use.

What is true to say is that at low speeds the indirect injection engine has more efficient combustion so is less likely to smoke at idle. However this combustion efficiency is, I feel, very unlikely to translate into a measurable fuel consumption advantage. There are still pumping losses even at tick over.

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2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

But they may smoke a bit more at light loads/low revs.

Can't work out why being DI or IDI would make a difference to the oil change intervals. If anything the cleaner low speed burn and arguably slower build up to peak pressure in the cylinder may indicate the IDI engine would have longer oil change intervals.

Major advantage is DI engines tend to be much better cold starters even if they do smoke a bit.

The way I would decide would be related to the mariniser's customer service and the ready availability of spares from sources other than the mariniser. I get the feeling that Beta/Kubota may be slightly ahead there. I would also look at "unnecessary" complications of arguable value like the Barrus calorifier thermostat and avoid them.

I note that from a question sent to the magazine forum Barrus recently sent a customer the wrong profile alternator belt and according to the boater did not respond to his request for help. I would say that is more serious then the Beta problem mentioned above because from what I gather Beta have helped at least some customers.

By all means put me right on this  Tony - I defer to your greater knowledge - but I've always understood that direct injection engines can potentially run at lower compression ratios than indirect, which means less contaminant being forced into the oil.  I seem to recall this came up in a discussion about the difference between service intervals on Lister LPW and LPWS engines.  (It was some time ago, mind, and my memory isn't great these days...).  

I think the oil change intervals on the standard Beta are shorter than Barrus but if the engine has the oversized sump Cuthound refers to they are the same at 250 hours.

  

  

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Barrus Shire 45 on a 10ish year old boat.  Had the boat 5 years now without any issues.  We spend a lot of time on the Thames and it deals with tidal and non-tidal equally well.  We get it properly serviced at, more or less, the correct intervals and it never needs too much or costs too much.

We are happy with it.

I have used Yanmar quite a lot in the past in lumpy water boats and have never had a problem.

(Of course, you know that having written all this, we will break down turning into Brentford against a spring flood tide and end up stuck on the bank! ho hum)

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34 minutes ago, cuthound said:

You are absolutely correct. The splined crankshaft extends out of the engine gone to drive the various hydraulic pumps needed on plant equipment, and Beta cut it off on the earlier engines.

As well as easy starting with the Beta engine, I find the oversized sump keeps the oil cleaner for longer than on any other diesel engine I have ever come across.

As the original Beta team were enthusiastic boaters and always prepared to make modifications to suit a specific market or a customer - the oversized sump is a good example of that -  it makes me more comfortable in recommending their products when asked. From my limited contacts with other marinisers  (?sp), I don't get the same feeling.

Going back to the OP - it's not clear whether he wanted a new unit or looking for an used / reconditioned item - that may well have a bearing on what he eventually buys.

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14 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

By all means put me right on this  Tony - I defer to your greater knowledge - but I've always understood that direct injection engines can potentially run at lower compression ratios than indirect, which means less contaminant being forced into the oil.  I seem to recall this came up in a discussion about the difference between service intervals on Lister LPW and LPWS engines.  (It was some time ago, mind, and my memory isn't great these days...).  

I think the oil change intervals on the standard Beta are shorter than Barrus but if the engine has the oversized sump Cuthound refers to they are the same at 250 hours.

  

  

This is from Wikipedia:

"There is no electrical sparking plug in an auto-ignition diesel engine; the heat of compression raises the temperature of the air in the cylinder sufficiently to ignite the diesel when this is injected into the cylinder; after the compression stroke. The CR will customarily exceed 14:1 and ratios over 22:1 are common. The appropriate compression ratio depends on the design of the cylinder head. The figure is usually between 14:1 and 23:1 for direct injection engines, and between 18:1 and 23:1 for indirect injection."

I can see your thinking but both seem to have the same maximum compression ratio and it seems the choice of compression ratio for a particular engine is based on more than simply DI or IDI. Without looking at the actual pressure diagrams for both engines I would not like to say who is correct. Then one should take into account the sealing of the piston. As an example BMCs used 5 rings on their pistons 2 x oil control and 3 x compression where as modern practice is to use three, 1 x oil control and 2 x compression. Again I would not like to say who is probably right without details of the actual engines.

i agree my DI oil seems to be cleaner than many IDI engines I have worked on but it has a full length sumps and I tend to change it more frequently than the service intervals. I can not attribute the cleanliness to being DI.

Interesting discussion though.

 

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3 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

This is from Wikipedia:

"There is no electrical sparking plug in an auto-ignition diesel engine; the heat of compression raises the temperature of the air in the cylinder sufficiently to ignite the diesel when this is injected into the cylinder; after the compression stroke. The CR will customarily exceed 14:1 and ratios over 22:1 are common. The appropriate compression ratio depends on the design of the cylinder head. The figure is usually between 14:1 and 23:1 for direct injection engines, and between 18:1 and 23:1 for indirect injection."

I can see your thinking but both seem to have the same maximum compression ratio and it seems the choice of compression ratio for a particular engine is based on more than simply DI or IDI. Without looking at the actual pressure diagrams for both engines I would not like to say who is correct. Then one should take into account the sealing of the piston. As an example BMCs used 5 rings on their pistons 2 x oil control and 3 x compression where as modern practice is to use three, 1 x oil control and 2 x compression. Again I would not like to say who is probably right without details of the actual engines.

i agree my DI oil seems to be cleaner than many IDI engines I have worked on but it has a full length sumps and I tend to change it more frequently than the service intervals. I can not attribute the cleanliness to being DI.

Interesting discussion though.

 

Now I've bothered to retrace my steps on this; 

If you consider the Lister LPW and LPWS range, both sets of engines have the same power output but different oil change intervals, the LPWS requires oil changes twice as often as it's DI sibling.   The compression ratio of the Di engine is 18.5:1, the indirect version is 23.5:1.  Both sump capacities are the same.

I concluded from this that for a given power output, if you opt for an indirect injection engine it will likely have a higher compression ratio and therefore increased oil change intervals.      

It would be interesting to know what CR the respective Beta and Barrus engines operate at but they don't appear to provide that data, I guess you'd have to go to Kubota and Yanmar to find it. 

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I can tell you that the DI Bukh DV36 has a CR of 18.5:1. I feel its just coincidence that the figure seems to be the same for the Lister. Not that it gets us any nearer to a definitive answer. I still think other engine design feature play a part like piston crown shape.

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