You gotta see the other large high performance marine engine makers Cat and MAN, as they entered the thirty litre or more 2000hp plus high performance marine engine sector in recent years, MTU throws them a boomerang. Long story short MTU presents the 27.9 litre 12V2000 M96Z at 2,222hp. That is some important juice for a sub thirty litre engine.
After dominating the market since the end of the noughties first with the MTU 16V2000 M96 2400hp arriving in 2006, then with M96L at 2600hp which arrived three years later. The 16V M96 engine has dominated the market for super yachts around and above the thirty meters size since arriving, with competition coming fifteen years later; first from Cat in 2021 with the 32.1 litre C32B 2450hp, and then MAN in 2022 with the 29.6 litre block 2200hp V12X. Choice has expanded for the customer and yacht maker from the 2010's, although as at today the 36 litre MTU still very much dominates this market.
This new 27.9 litre engine see MTU look at making things lighter and higher performing and entering in competition with the MAN and its 24 litre V12 2000hp engine. While MTU dominated the market around thirty meters, MAN looked at under that size and and for those looking and under 2000hp. The result was the MAN V12-2000 which arrived in 2018.
Now with this new 27 litre engine MTU bring 220 extra horses with 3.7 litres more in displacement, and about half a ton more in weight versus the MAN V12-2000. Result is still small advantage to MAN of .09hp/kg or 0.84 horsepower per kilogram, which is the best in the industry for the large engines. If you compare the new MTU to the MAN V12-2200 which has a 29.6 litres block and is the German largest high performance engine offer, the MAN still has an advantage of .05 hp/kg or 0.80 horsepower per kilogram.