Yeah this needs more checking, often to see if it happens again.
Don't want to see this photo again. If you look at the top of the gurdles and the bottom of the heads you can see the milk shake. too much back firing= blown head gasket.

I think it is inexcusable for a distributor, sold as a marine unit, to rust up the way they do.
Bought one MSD setup on first boat, rusted every year. Last MSD junk i ever bought.
I MUCH prefer the Crane HI-6M, and the stock Merc. distributor is hall effect to boot. MSD who?

When I bought my boat 6 years ago, it already had the MSD billet distributors with the MSD ignition boxes. I got rid of the MSD ignition boxes and I went with the Crane Hi-M6 ignition boxes instead, but I decided to retain the MSD billet distributors. I also decieded to go with an MSD crank trigger system relying on the pickup from the crank vs inside the distributor. With a crank trigger system the timing never moves, and it is a very reliable set-up. I've had it for 6 years and no problems.

I've had the same original Crane HI-M6 ignition boxes for 6 years without any problems (fresh water environment) as well. One of the Crane boxes even had several gallons of hi-pressure water sprayed on it when I first installed it 6 years ago----still no problems after all these years.

I just bought 2 crane HI-6M boxes for my boat. What is the correct hookup to merc style Dist? Are they Hall Effect or magnetic? Thanks for any info