being a 98 who knows what engine is in there now...could have been changed more than once, if the merc # is on the bolt on parts wont tell you anything at this point

Mercruiser did not make anymore 454 Cartb engines past mid 1996. Hull year model MEANS ZERO as I preach this 1000 s upon 1000 s of times up here. your engine is most likely a 1995 or early 1996. It is best to have the engine serial number ran thru OEM dealer Merc net. This will tell one the boat / hull plus that engine installed with dates and a ton of other info. The free online sites are ball park of years of engines and drives plus do not provide any other info from day one.

Alot of Mercruiser engine serial numbers start with 0. . the later engine builds do not start with 0..

When buying a used boat of any sort it is important to run all serial numbers thru a OEM dealer to see exactly what one is buying for comparison to hull. A prime example and the reason why. This summer i did a pre purchase inspection for a buyer and the boat had twin engines. MPI. big block 496s 8.1 s.

The hull was 2010 but one engine was 2008 and the other engine was a late 2005 / model year 2006. the hours of the engines per scan were not the same but the hour meters on the dash were showing 176 and 179. The scan showed. the 2008 engine had 254 hours and the other engine 728 hours. Talk about a HUGE in asking price difference.

The survey person whom checked the boat out first did not have a scan tool. The buyer was smart on hiring a second opinion - a person THAT REALLY WORKS ON BOATS EVERYDAY and whom has a marine tools and one whom can run OEM serial numbers to gather the correct needed info . .I can not stress enough how life can be alot easier dealing with an OEM dealer / tech.