Just checking in. I got pretty lucky last week and landed a 3.0 mercruiser with only 125 hrs on the meter for a good price. I pulled the valve cover while I was stripping the marine specific parts and it looks like new inside. Compression was 150, 175, 160, 160. I think will should even out once it's run for a bit, (It's been sitting under cover for 15 years). So my plans have changed. I'm going to put a new head gasket in the 153 that's in the jeep, clean up the head a bit and run it through the summer. This will give me time to fab up some decent manifolds for the 181 and I'll swap it in next winter.
