Winner 21 re-engine - thoughts please

[james_sanders_uk]

I have some sort of winner 21, the 305ci mercruiser slumped out a meagre 228hp when it was lovingly carried out of the factory by the marine stork to it's proud owner. over thirty years later and with little mechanical interest in such a fruitless engine it has failed to propel me to more than 30 knots so I have decided to re-engine. With engine failures being much more critical at sea I have decided to use two engines. I had been thinking of using a Jaguar AJV8 from an XKR but I don't like the idea that a supercharger will be straining the engine at all times so I had been looking at an engine with a smaller footprint (I had considered two toyota UZ 4.0 V8s but they are quite big for their output) so I am close to settling on a pair of 3.5l v6 Honda engines from legends. They are limited by the engine management to around 210hp each but were originally designed to produce nearly 300hp in standard tune. Honda also has a very good name for reliability and as the same engine is used upended in the more powerful Honda outboard engines servicing, repairs etc. can be completed by any marine engineer with a Honda badge above the door. The engine will have to have minimal marinisation as I intend to use a keel cooling system (one for each engine to allow complete independence and therefore redundancy) using large plates either side of the keel. I am looking into counter rotating props on new legs or jets as the final propulsion method but have not settled on a solution for that. My hull planes at around 12 kts so I don't need to worry too much about dragging it up there but I would like to be able to cross the channel to France easily and secure in the knowledge that if one engine fails I have another already running. Using the V6 will also give me more interior space to play with.