i decided to go ahead and send the two older powerheads to Jim Ruch for new bearings, rings and reeds so I'll be breaking all four powerheads in at the same time

You've got the right guy .....

I saw his name here on OSO and also found out that alot of other Mercury "engine builders" send their blocks to Jim to be fixed.

Jim ruck is the man!!

Are you running stock 280's? I know you spectre had drags with some work done on them right?

I had factory stock 2.5 drags on the spectre that ran pretty well with merc 32X15 three blade cleavers reworked by DAH Propeller. (119mph Gaffrig speedo) @7900 rpm My only gripe was that due to the more extreme porting, and the fact that Mercury didnt intend for the Drags to end up on an offshore/pleasure boat, they didnt idle well around the docks at all, so that made it interesting coming in.
This time I'm running 2.5 280's on the Skater. Hopefully with better idle characteristics, but still enough hp to make it fun

Any new pictures?

I took a month off to get away for awhile

enjoying the view

view from the air not too bad either