37 PC Fuel Consumption

[flyboy1]

Just bought a 2017 37 PC and am looking for performance data for Mercury 8.2 MAG ECT 380 B3X DTS engines and drives. Looked on BoatTest.com but they haven't tested this specific engine installation. Would like to know the most efficient cruise speed along with fuel consumption/power setting at that speed. Anybody have these engines on a 37PC?

 

[2006_31PC]

I would think Formula would have those #'s for you. Did you contact them ?

 

[flyboy1]

No response yet from Formula tech support.

 

[jetmart]

i have 8.1 Volvos and I trip plan for 1 gal per mile.

 

[axapowell]

Merc 8.1L gasser...Lots of fuel! Here's a screen shot at normal cruise.

Dave

 

[FastMarkA]

Formula has a "book" with RPM/speed/burn charts, but not all engines are included.

Here's one that member jshell posted in a thread of mine for the 8.2L 380s on the 330 CBR.

While the 37PC is quite a bit heavier than the 330CBR, I'd imagine the RPM/gph rates will be similar (the engines don't know what they're pushing). But I'd bet 3000 RPMs will not get the 37PC to 29mph like it does on the 330CBR!

 

[FastMarkA]

And if you're really data obsessive like me, you may just want to get the boat out and track its performance on your own.

I created a spreadsheet to put in all of these entries (that of course makes some weight, MPG, and range calculations). It doesn't take long to average the numbers, create a chart, and figure out what the best burn is for your boat.

I just take a ton of pictures of the vessel view data, and then when I'm back at the dock, I open up my laptop, pour a drink, and make all of the entries.

 

[flyboy1]

Thanks for the info guys. I guess I'll be doing as FastMarkA suggests and gathering my own test data when I get the boat in the water. I'll post some results down the road. Let the season begin!

 

[Seaduction]

axapowell - what system do you have that shows the estimated fuel (153 gal) for your trip?

 

[axapowell]

That's fuel remaining. For fuel planning purposes, I use Navionics. I can also send routes to my plotter.

Dave

 

[Seaduction]

Thanks!

I have used Vessel View but it never seems to be that accurate.

 

[axapowell]

There is a fuel manager on my RayMarine plotter, you reset it when you fuel up and it subtracts it as you burn thru it. The fuel flow comes from SmartCraft into the plotter.

Dave

 

[flyboy1]

Well so far, after only being on the water a couple of times the fuel consumption on the new 37PC is not as good as I had hoped. MPG's are running about the same as my 34PC with inboards although I'm going a quite a bit faster. Right now it looks like about 3500-3600 RPM's and about 25-26kts is about the most economical cruise burning about 35-36 gallons an hour. We'll see how things shake out after the break-in period.

 

[axapowell]

I am a little surprised. That is real close to our V-Drive burn and speed. Only 1-3 miles an hour of speed and 1-3 gallons per hour.

I took my props to the shop this winter to have them tweaked to see if we could squeak out a little more economy. We are launching this coming week, so I may have improved data in the next week or two.

One thing the prop shop commented on was that I was not reaching max RPM. On these heavy boats, that is important to get better economy thru the entire RPM range. I would be certain that you are getting max RPM, or you may need to get another set of props to try from Formula.

In the past, it wasn't uncommon to need a lower pitch prop as Formula generally over pitched their boats. Our PC could have actually used a 2" lower pitch prop from the factory, and a couple years later they did that. Accutech tried to re-pitch these monsters, but because of the close overlap of the blades, they were only able to give us 1/2", so we will see how that works.

Dave