Out of curiosity how did the needle bearings take out the long block? Get into the lifter bores or something?

Just went thru complete rebuilds on 2003 525's with 460+ and 470+ hrs, never been apart. My builder found 1 broken piston ring, both cam's had damage/gauling, at least one head gasket (another problem area on early 525's I believe) about gone and 3 out of 4 headers with cracks.
That seems to agree with full rebuilds at the 500 hr mark.

.......and this is my second 525 boat, love these motors as mentioned by others.

Agreed, I was thinking the same thing. Thanks!

Got into the lifter valley and pan. Tore up the crankshaft, camshaft and bearings. This engine had been rebuilt previously (prior to my ownership) and when we tore it down, we discovered that the crank had already been turned once before so that was out of the question, that it had mismatched pistons with wrist pins that had been superheated to get them in and bunch of other stuff that made my engine builder say...."I'm not touching that thing"... so it became more cost effective to replace the long block. Point still, that a rocker blowing up can do significant damage.

Thanks for the info. I'd always heard that, but didn't know the reason why.

For the guys that have whipplized these motors, how dramatically does that change the maintenance intervals?