I wonder if someone give me some help with the following?
I am looking at buying a 1997 31' Formula Fastech with twin 502 MPIs (415 hp each) and approximately 135 hours. It has been sitting on blocks in a boat rack for four years and has not been used or serviced during that time. What is the procedure I should follow to bring it back to life so as to minimise the negative effects of sitting for so long.

If it turns over , I think at least i'd pull the distributors and prime the oil pumps before trying to start it after sitting that long. Of course complete fluid change and tune up parts are in order.

Impellers also

You'll need to get it on a diet of fresh gas immediately. Don't run any of the old stuff through it.

Was it winterised before storage ? If it did'nt have fogging oil run through it back then you might want to get a bore scope into it first to make sure the cylinder walls haven't gone rusty.

What climate was the boat in ? .. Freezing winters or not ?
That changes things too .

mine boat had been sitting for 2 yrs when I got it..first thing I did was drain the fuel, and changed the oil, and filters, then I oulled all the plugs, sprayed a shot of fogging oil in each cylinder, then turned the motor over by hand with a breaker bar a couple of turns, then with the starter (with no plugs in) just to get everything moving again. then put the plugs in , started it, let it warm up, changed the oil and filters, repeated and ti was good to go. Sitting is actually hard on motors, your going to have to check all the hoses carefully, gaskets and seals like to dry up, so keep an eye out for oil leaks etc. the biggest thing thats gonna make a difference is how it was put away.

Thanks for the help! It was put away by a marina with two Mercury mechanics, would they have been likely to fog the cylinders? Would this be commen practice? The winters were freezing. Assuming it was put away properly, is it reasonable to expect problems for a while or not? In other words in your opinion should I stay away from this boat or pursuit it? Thanks for the help!
John

Not to be demeaning to mechanics, but in a Marina nothing is common practice. My 12 years expeirence with Marina Mechanics is if you do not ask for it or order it, no extra effort is made. Most Marina Mgrs. have a work order to cover their behinds and if the previous owner didn't specify that he wanted the engines fogged then they probably did not get fogged.

If you have stock exhaust manifolds you're probably gonna want to take the risers off and replace the gasket...while you're at it, maybe replace the risers too.

Definetely dump the fuel and replace the filters... You could have some surface rust on the valves so the motor might sound like crap for a minute after start-up.

And of course the water pump, the vaines on the impeller have a memory and are probably weak.

Other than that, if it was winterized properly it should run fine.