Clean fuel and clean oil, about all they take, general maint.... If it has some type of flex coupling, keep an eye on them as they vibrate pretty hard and tear stuff up as they age. The 396s are pretty good old engines.
Info: 16 V 396 MTU? Thanks for the above information. Can any one tell me about fuel burn @ rated horse power and avalability of spares. I can imagine these guys are not cheap to keep. Thanks
They came in a pretty wide spectrum of power ratings and you can figure at least 150gph at WOT. Parts availability is good. You are correct, they are not "cheap to keep", however, neither is any other engine in this range. IMO, the 396 was the last good engine out of MTU. I'm not fond of either the 2000 or 4000 series, however the 4000 is better than the 2000.