FOND DU LAC, Wisc. – The North American Die Casting Association (NADCA) has awarded Mercury Marine’s V-8 engine block as the winner of the Aluminum – Over 10lb category for the 2018 Die Casting Competition. The award honors Mercury’s launch of the all-new V-8, 4.6L FourStroke outboard lineup.
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 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. The writer says about Mercury, “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.”
“We are honored to win this award from NADCA,” said Mike Meyer, Mercury Marine general manager of castings. “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.”