The North American Die Casting Association has awarded Mercury Marine’s V-8 engine block as the winner of the Aluminum—Over 10-Pound—category for its 2018 Die Casting Competition. The news was announced in a press release from the Fond du Lac, Wis., marine engine and accessories company.
The award honors Mercury’s launch of the all-new V-8, 4.6L FourStroke outboard lineup.
Mercury Marine has received yet another honor for its new V-8 outboard engine platform.
“We are honored to win this award from NADCA,” said Mike Meyer, the company’s general manager of castings, in the release. “Our V-8 and V-6 outboard production has been very well received in the marketplace. We take great pride in our casting processes and this award is the culmination of a lot of hard work and effort by our entire team.”
According to the judges, the V-8 has a simpler design that allows for a bigger displacement in the same package. This leads to an increase in low-end torque of the motor, the release stated.
The award and Mercury’s new V-8 outboards will be featured in the upcoming Die Cast Engineer Magazine and 2018 NADCA Congress and Expo this fall.
An excerpt from the article reads, “The change in manufacturing process lowered cost, increased takt time, reduced finishing time and improved ergonomics in manufacturing. Traceability was added to the manufacturing process to track castings through the entire engine manufacturing process. This allows for all critical shot parameters, machining parameters, leak test information, and assembly information to be traced to the final engine serial number. Big data analytics and machine learning will be applied to drive additional insights on the casting process.”
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