Got a couple quarts of oil in and tried firing her up, but she kept dying which im not surprised given the temps out, even in the middle of summer these engines were hard to keep running till they built up some heat. She maybe ran 30 seconds total and I cranked it for another 2 minutes, pulled the plug, then had to come in cause its blowing hard and cold on the dock. Tomorrow and Tuesday are going to be high 40's, Wed will be mid 60's so thats probably when I I can next.

This motor (or both of them really) probably have to come out but given the difficulties in doing so it would probably be good if I can get a mechanic down to help me evaluate and decide what to do.

WTF? Just stop.

I have probably 6-7 spark plug sockets and only 1 that the wall is thin enough that it clears the manifolds enough it makes plug removal/install doable and easy.I'd lpve to tell you what it is but it's shrink wrapped in a boat I;ll be working on again in a month when things unfreeze around here. Doh.

double post. See below.

Oh, I'd put min of 4 quarts oil. I've seen many chevy V8's click/clack (lifters and such) with low volume stock car oil pumps under 4 quarts.

who said 1 quart? I'd turn in my medical marijuana card if I where you. And probably lay off the mushrooms too.

Thanks, you also advised me 2 years ago when my original 454's gave up after 15 years. I JUST missed the stroker 496's you were selling at the time, probably would have saved me a lot of $$ and headaches. It will work out alright, if its really a huge problem I may end up skipping another year, but the boat is family and sometimes you gotta deal with family issues.

Today I found a socket that works! Thx

You aren't hitting waves at 60 mph at 5500 rpm. If you see oil pressure at idle you have enough oil to idle. The less you fill, the less you have to mop out of the bilge. At 5000 rpm pump is drawing oil 6 or 7 times as fast as at 750 rpm.