44 2009 dancer with QSB's???

boltman

boltman

Active Member
Dec 28, 2005
1,507
Flint/Swartz Creek MI, Ported in Whitehall/Montagu
Boat Info
480 Sedan Bridge
"Sea Ray's Best Boat Ever Made"
Engines
700 hp MANS Diesels Thundering Cathedrals of Torque!!
44 dancer 2009 with QSB's Shouldn't this boat have QSC's and it has Zeus Drives, but I'm thinking it's under powered as Hell, I'm looking at making an offer, but I was told the QSB's in a 40 footer are underpowered can't even imagine what it's like in a 44 dancer with Zeus's

Come on Guys Chime in on this one?????

And what is wrong with this site I have to log in like 4 times, then sometimes it doesn't let me log on at all.????
 
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boltman said:
44 dancer 2009 with QSB's Shouldn't this boat have QSC's and it has Zeus Drives, but I'm thinking it's under powered as Hell, I'm looking at making an offer, but I was told the QSB's in a 40 footer are underpowered can't even imagine what it's like in a 44 dancer with Zeus's

Come on Guys Chime in on this one?????

And what is wrong with this site I have to log in like 4 times, then sometimes it doesn't let me log on at all.????
Click to expand...

The 44DA Zeus drives all had QSB's but there are two variants, the base at 425 hp and the uprated 480 hp. Zeus is a more efficient drive system than the V Drives with the QSC so I'm guessing either is ok, but if its got the uprated engine it won't be underpowered....though the 480 hp probably uses higher boost, a heavier fuel schedule and maybe achieves its rating at a higher rpm, never a good combination for diesel longevity. The base 40 DA with QSB's originally had 380 hp and were underpowered, Sea Ray fixed that with the 425 hp version. I thought Sea Ray stopped making 44 DA's in '08. :huh:
 
I have heard from a pretty reliable source that Sea Ray stopped making the 44 because the Zeus drives and the 44 hull did not cooperate as well as they thought. Thus why it was replaced with the 43/47 on its redesigned hull.

I know of at least one owner who was not happy at all with the 44 and Zeus, he traded the boat after a few weeks for a Zeus powered 48 which he is very happy with.

From the one I ran its my personal opinion that a 44 with Zeus doesn't even compare with a V-Drive 44.
 
The B series engines are lower torque engines than the C series, that is one problem. The other is one of real hp at an rpm where you can use it. One way to get more hp is to convert more fuel into energy. Cummins has done that on the QSB by raising the rated rpm to something north of 3000. So the QSB's are making the 400+ hp but they have to turn high rpms to do it. Those are 2 problems for me........diesels work best when you can use their torque and that means at an RPM setting that is economical and does not tax the engines.

The 44DA with QSC and v-drives is a great boat. The 44DA hull was never designed for pod drives and its reception in the market place was ice cold. I've spent a couple of hours on a 43DA with QSB and Zeus drives and they perform as advertised, will walk sideways, etc., but it seems to me they will be very high maintenance drive systems due to the Zeus pods and the rpms the engines must run. I'm just not a buyer for small diesel that have to run high rpms to deliver power.
 
I'm not a fan of anything new from Mercury. They use their customers as they alpha and beta testers. Unfortunately, Mercury Marine has proven itself over and over again to not be trustworthy with their new products. We've seen that time and time again with products such as the sportjet and the bravo 3. Wait until it's been in volume production for at least five years before you consider putting a few hundred grand into their stuff. I don't yet consider Zeus to be in volume production. They probably only turned out maybe a few hundred units. Five years of tens of thousands, then maybe they'll have done all their engineering. That will probably no sooner than model year 2017. But at this point? No way!

Best regards,
Frank
 
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I'm Not really worried about the Mercury marine side of the boat, I have twin Bravo 3's now, no problems at all had an Alfa one for 17 years... No Issues at all. I'm talking about the QSB's that's Cummins.... and I'm worried about them being underpowered, but I've just spoke to my friend Adam on the west coast of Michigan, who demo'd a boat just like it and he loved it... but the jury is still out for me yet, I will however take a ll my research into consideration and them maybe test this boat down south.....
 
Two things: Listen to the guys above. Test drive the boat.
 
wow - that's an interesting project! Bucking the trend of attaching little diesels to pods and spinning them as fast as they can, by hooking up over-sized engines instead.

Lots of hours on her for an '08... I assume that was a lot of testing to see if the C9's would tear the Zeus pods apart.
 
The specs on that boat does read like it was a PD&E boat, and I do know that every boat driver at Sea Ray took a turn in trying to see what their test boat could handle. Could explain the hours.
 
I thought the zeus drive and engines needed to be interfaced so that the joystick could control engine RPM. If so, that's not a trivial task. I'd like to see the history on that boat.

Too bad it's not a V-drive / C9 combination. Oh well.
 
The C 9 is an electronic engine so I suspect Cat makes the system open to 3rd party vendors like Mercruiser, Mathers, Glendinning, etc. for use with their control systems.

I'll tell you, though, after running one of the Zeus drives that had not had all the software updates, and powered by QSB Cummins, you could lay one rub rail in the water, then deflect the joystick fully and lay the opposite rail in the water. I can only imagine how touchy that system would have been with Cat torque.
 
i have the 44 with v drives and the 480 hp cummins . love the boat , 30 mph cruise , 34 to 36 top end .fuel is always about the same .8 miles per gallon or around 19 to 20 gallons per hour per engine . With bow thruster the boat is easy to put anywhere . no nothing about zeus . sorry
 
fwebster said:
The C 9 is an electronic engine so I suspect Cat makes the system open to 3rd party vendors like Mercruiser, Mathers, Glendinning, etc. for use with their control systems.

I'll tell you, though, after running one of the Zeus drives that had not had all the software updates, and powered by QSB Cummins, you could lay one rub rail in the water, then deflect the joystick fully and lay the opposite rail in the water. I can only imagine how touchy that system would have been with Cat torque.
Click to expand...

Maybe that's why she's for sale. I can just see the guy's wife right now...
 
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