My family has had boats since the day I was born. We have had them all, Inboard, I/O, outboard...
The outboard is the best for having easy access, lightweight, good power/weight etc...
The Inboard we always seemed to have good luck with. Had a 440 Chrysler in our Luhrs, and twin 350s in our Chris Craft. Never an issue with either motor, although removing and replacing would have been a bear and working on them can be cramped.
Had a few I/O boats and currently mine has twin I/Os. Mine has Mercruiser Alpha 1s, which was one of the reasons I liked the boat when I looked at it. Parts are very easily attained. The motors on the other hand are very very rare!
A smallish ski/fishing boat (under 26' or so) I would go outboard. A midsize cruiser (22'-30') would go I/O and anything larger I would prefer Inboards... of course thats a general thing, and individual options vary!
congrads.. im guessing you go on lake hopatcong? i just moved out of the area and grew up on the lake.. thats a steal for that boat.. have fun with it in byram cove..
i moved out to nc. i was in hopatcong for about 4 years about a mile off the lake.before that was roxbury and before that j-town on the lake right next to bradys bridge.. i had so much fun but had to get away from the drama of the dumb people out there. the cove is a great place thow. i wish you the best of luck with your boat and hope you have a great time out there
Just in case anyone was following, I picked the boat up yesterday, he said the starter solenoid was bad cause it would just crank and crank and crank with the key on run. Got a new battery, and turned the key to run and it would crank, took the ignition switch out, moved the exciter wire to another post on it and now it cranks the way it should have. Then it wasn't getting spark, simply just a wire for the points that didn't have a nut holding it on the post. It runs really well now, although it was steaming like a son of a bitch after it heated up. We thought maybe it had a blown head gasket but the compression all checks to 130-150 PSI across all four. We did notice that the fuel tank smells like antifreeze a bit so may be the jackalope put antifreeze in it when he winterized it. It's getting registered this week and will hopefully be out on the water by mid next week! I'm pumped that for 500 bucks I may have a decent boat to tool around on and tinker with and flip for a decent profit/bigger and better boat.