I'm contemplating buying a boat with '95 carbureted Merc HP500s, and just wanted to get some feedback about their general reliability and maintenance. I'm really looking for dependability over high performance, but hope that these will offer a good blend of both. Also, these are mated to Bravo One drives and I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade the upper gears to XRs to more comfortably handle the 500 HP. Any thoughts/insights would be appreciated.

I think they are great engines, need valve spring replacement by 300hrs, not a bad idea to change the crane rockers then as well..

Some of the earlier carbed HP500's had reversion issues with the Gil exhaust, so look out for that. There was a service bulletin that stated to avoid prolonged idling, and to set the idle speed up a little bit to help with this. I think there was a second design for the Gil risers that made them go up higher to give a better slope out the transom to help with this, but not sure what year the change was made.

I had a set in a 33 AVS. I thought they were great engines. Ran better/more responsive than the 500 efi's

Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated. Would any of you have any hesitation about hooking them up to a set of Bravo 1s?

Bravos were behind the great majority of them. I would not hesitate to run a Bravo behind one. It's not like you are trying to feed 700 HP through it (and many on this board are doing just that). You should be fine - just use some common sense.

had a 1997 formula 382 fastech hp 500 carbs std bravo 1 s. never an issue with the drives .an hp 500 is 470 hp at prop shaft not 500