Ralph,

I hope you don't me posting this here but I thought I might get some good suggestions from yourself, Jim and others on how to proceed.

Below are some pics of the OPS 60 RH I picked up recently. As Jim mentioned, these are the three port red heads. It came with a Perry carb (of equivalent vintage) which was a little wonky. I took the engine apart to check on its internals and it looks to be in excellent shape - hardly run if at all. I happened to have a Picco carb that fit just fine and judging from the OPS carbs, the Picco and OPS are very similar which makes sense considering the "P" in OPS refers to Mr. Picco. I'm thinking that a Perry pump and carb combo might be the way to go in the absence of the Picco carb. Perhaps a little better power output.

As can be seen though it came with the attached flywheel and lacking the proper tools, I was unable to remove it. All the bolts were pretty much seized up but I was able to work them out eventually. The flywheel requires a special caliper to grasp on to it so that it can be locked in place while the front end is unscrewed - I believe. Anyone with boating experience know how to go about this with regular tools?

I assume that I'll also need some parts for the front end - a drive washer as well as a prop washer and retainer nut - well, the nut will probably be replaced with a spinner retainer nut. Otherwise, I assume that the crankshaft front end is standard with threads under the flywheel that can't be seen.

Ralph, I'll be interested to know what performance you get out of your red head with the APC 11x7. Mine is a SE rather than the RE so performance might be a little lower. Anyone know what the required header is for this SE? Is there an engine with equivalent bolt spacing on the exhaust?

David.