Oftentimes, the marine product representative who meets with us is a bubbly, fact-spewing, marketing type wielding an expense account and prodding us to hurry lest we be late for lunch. When we showed up to learn about the new Raptor by Indmar 460, we were delighted to have been met by the vice president of engineering, Jason Stimmel. Read on to learn about what Stimmel and the Indmar engineering team have developed.
Indmar aims the Raptor 460 primarily at watersports boats and the aluminum jet boats popular on the rivers of western North America, though it should make an able repower candidate for boaters looking to replace a big-block V-8. Both primary missions require low-end torque and high power in order to be successful. Bear in mind that Indmar is more challenged than automakers in meeting such performance parameters, since its marinized engines have only one forward gear, not six. Nonetheless, Indmar apparently married these disparate attributes harmoniously with the Raptor 460. The Raptor 460 makes 453 foot-pounds of maximum torque and produces 410 horsepower.
The engine is based on the Built Ford Tough 6.2L 16-valve SOHC V-8 with dual-equal variable cam timing. As such, the foundation for the Raptor 460 is well-proven in untold numbers of Ford Super Duty F-Series pickups. It should not be confused with Ford’s legacy 460, a bigger-displacement, heavier V-8, which some may remember as powering the Lincoln Continental and Ford LTD and Thunderbird until the late 1970s, and later serving as a crate engine into the 1990s. (That 460 engine was known as the 385, a name taken from the crank stroke, which was 3.85 inches.) This new Raptor 460 is said to be lighter, more powerful and more efficient. It also boasts a high-torque intake manifold and high-horsepower throttle body borrowed from Ford’s coveted GT-350.
It’s been said that engines are air pumps, and a big part of the Raptor 460’s performance is its ability to breath easily, according to Stimmel. He elaborated that a special intake helps deliver bottom-end torque yet Mustang-like top-end performance. The engine also sports a free-flowing, tuned 5-inch-diameter exhaust and, notably, a patent-pending in-line spiral flow muffler.
I was impressed by the serviceability of the engine. Service points such as dipsticks and drains are brightly color-coded — there was even a built-in rack for stowing removed winterization plugs. Most of the fuses are in one place, which makes troubleshooting easier, and a proprietary sea strainer is on board and lets one see at a glance what the cooling system has been ingesting, besides helping to limit the spread of invasive species. LED lights in the cover are just plain cool.
Other features of note include standard closed cooling, motor mounts with a special rubber compound to cut down vibration and noise, and an E-coated oil pan to resist corrosion. The jet series has been designed with a single-point drain and is available with most popular water jets. Like all Raptor series engines, the 460 comes with a five-year factory warranty.
We’ll be testing boats powered by this engine in the coming months and will publish performance data at that time. For more information, visit indmar.com.
