A while back I posted some questions about expanding our garage to house the Classic and our 911 and my wife's Subaru. We finally have plans and are getting ready to break ground in the next week or two. The garage will be big enough to house a 22 Classic with room to get around it. All was going well and I've been looking for a 22 to replace the 18C. Until now.

Over the past 18 months we have rebuilt the transom and replaced the stringers in the 18. A new gimble, oil pan, timing cover and chain, exhaust manifolds, risers, exhaust tips, trim tabs, etc. So a lot has been done to the 18.

The last time out we put about 60 miles on and it was running terrible when I got back. I pulled the plugs and on the port side they looked like they were steam cleaned. The heads were pulled and the port head is cracked. Actually, it's more like a hole rotted through. So the extra money that I would put toward a 22 is now being spent on the motor and I've decided to keep the 18 a bit longer so that the garage can be "finished" so that it's more than just a place to work but also a good place to spend time pondering and maybe watching a race from time to time. Besides, running the 18 in rough water on Tampa Bay or the other surrounding areas can be a ton of fun! So this leads to the question that has been asked many times here; what to replace the stock motor with. Chris from Fitch Powerboat Services has a 377 long block if I can talk him out of it. If not I'm looking for options. I'd like to end up with 350 to 375 hp. Reliability is also important. I'm keeping the Alpha as I don't need to do extreme hole shots but we do pull skier's from time to time on the lake. Skier's don't need hard hole shots.

Just curious what your thoughts are. There's a lot of knowledge here and I'd like to tap into it before I do something and then later hear "you should have..."

Thanks,
Chip