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You wave your Harry Potter wand over it and say "Expelliamous!" and poof a truck engine becomes a marine engine.

But in the real world we exchange marine engines for marine engines and pay the cost to do so because that is the price of boating. If you go the hillbilly route and try to put a truck engine in your boat you'll probably be OK if you run it in fresh water only. Any taste of salt and that thing is going to start corroding from the inside out. You want to use the truck engine as a real marine engine you'll need to change the cam, the pistons, the head gasket, the exhaust valves, the intake manifold the carburetor, the fuel pump the oil pan and pump and pickup, the flywheel, the distributor, the freeze plugs and...gee guys help me out what else am I missing? Oh yeah the alternator and water pump, and the dipstick and the thermostat and thermostat housing...
 
I am not really trying to hi-jack this threat but I have a question about this.I just changed out my 1977 351w and put in a 1990 351w F-250 truck engine that is a Jasper reman. I did put brass freeze plugs in it and put the original 4-barrel Holley and the intake manifold,oil pan,oil pump and pickup,flywheel,distributor.I am planing on only using it in fresh water,but where I am getting ready to move to Conneticut and I might take it in the salt water on occasions,I was thinking after everytime I use it in the salt water I am going to try and flush it out evertime I take it out of the saltwater,also wash the trailer and the whole damn boat.I am orginally from down by Galveston ,Texas and know what salt water does in a quick hurry!Is there any other thing I can do to prevent corroding? I really dont want to change out the camshaft,pistons or head gaskets since I already have it installed. thanks for any suggestions on trying to slow down it from corroding.
 
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I solved the cooling problems by going to a Closed Cooling System, and haven't looked back. The Salt Water never touches the engine internals, and I flush the Salt out every time I finish using the boat at the end of the day. Oh, yes, totally wash the trailer as well as the hull.

Bruce.
 
I solved the cooling problems by going to a Closed Cooling System, and haven't looked back.
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What he said times a hundred. Full closed cooling system will cool the manifolds as well so that the only truly vulnerable things will be the risers. Way easier on both the wallet and your tool box to just replace those every four or five years.
You may be able to source the necessary parts on Ebay or Craigslist. I have had lots of good luck with both. I've picked up several heat exchangers for less than $100 each. Often way way less. The exchanger, which is the heart of the system, is bronze and copper so these are rarely in bad condition save for needing new gaskets and zinc pencils and a good clean up. The rest is plumbing and brackets, and maybe a raw water pump. I have a half system (block only) on mine at present and am just using the Cobra's raw water pump. I am probably going to upgrade to a full system at some point but since I have a new set of manifolds on the engine now plus a full set of new spares on the shelf, I can wait for quite some time.
 
Thanks for the help, I posted another thread didnt feel good about posting in this one.since it wasnt mine.now I just need to figure out how to do it
 
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