what to do with my 350 mercruiser...

[mellobud]

Opinions are very welcome on this one. I recently bought a 350 mercruiser engine off a guy at work (standard rotation) 260hp and a niiice even power curve (courtesy of the people at mercruiser who hooked me up with the info) and tore all the boat parts off of it...got it looking like a real automotive engine...so i tore it down to see if it really was the advertised low hour engine i bought. (talk about a clean bottom end) so i flipped it over and took the heads off to look at the cylinder walls just to make sure i liked what i saw...boy there was a nasty looking pit on cylinder 6, it caught my thumbnail quite nice....i was heartbroken...so now i have a prime candidate for a good boring out with money i dont have....so my question is should i save the 350 for later and just run my '68 307 that came in my 1968 chevy truck or should i just run it and carry some extra oil on me. i forgot to mention that i really want a cruiser...nothing special..no heavy duty stuff...just cruiser. i have a 3.54 rear and i bought a really nice rebuilt 1980's t5 off of ebay rated for 330hp (i cracked it open to make sure) top notch tranny. a stock 68 307 with the 5 speed does have the cool factor...but everyone really pushes the 350...i really wouldnt notice that much of a difference with my driving...the tranny can handle that mild 350 but i would always be wary of pushing it. like i said im a laid back guy and just want a cool cruiser. the 307 is amazingly clean for being from that era...i have no qualms with it besides its such an oddball.

btw...i bought an 87 stepside truck bed....looks amazing...who would have thought that the lines match....easy install too just weld up some brackets to level the bed. highly recommended