I worked on one boat that had a pair of Detroit Diesel V16 (2xV8) engines. One engine acted like it was losing exhaust valves, which had the owner considerably miffed because both had just had a valve job, at considerable expense. They were 'mechanical' engines, and nobody could figure out which cylinders were misbehaving. ... and nobody wanted to front the cost of doing an exploratory teardown. (My then employer had made the exhaust system, and fingers were pointed at us because the pipes wobbled whenever the engine misfired. Cause and effect confused; duh.)
I worked on another boat that had had a pair of DD V24 (2xV12) engines, which had been removed under warranty and replaced with something simpler because they were troublesome. Nobody mentioned trouble with the inter-crank couplings, but apparently everything _else_ broke pretty regularly. (The newer engines should have received smaller mufflers, but the original monsters were left in place to save a little money. The mufflers shook the entire boat because the engines couldn't always blow the water out of the lift tubes. That was the only boat out of 450+ I worked on that had an exhaust component that was too big.)
I remember seeing such 'doubles', even 2xV6, in Detroit Diesel literature when I was a kid, but in real life, they are not common.
On the few engines I've had occasion to check, the usual 'crank nose' drives the accessory belts and the damper with a press fit and a single key, and couldn't be expected to carry the torque of another entire engine, so torque limiting and/or special 'rear' cranks would be required. Add to that the difficulty of servicing the camshaft or its drive on the 'rear' engine, and you wouldn't buy one either.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA