sorry man, had to make another thread for this, since it'll have a pic in it, and I'm on dial up.

Looking at my motor, the bolt patterns are different than my friends.  His, the thermostats were behind a cover above the 1 and 2 cylinders, 4 bolts holding them on. Any ideas where mine may be?  The clymer manual shows a completely different set up fromt his one.

Oops, you done got me now, didn't realize your motor was that old.  I don't think those late 60 - early 70 V-4's had thermostats.  I was running Mercs back then, didn't get into OMC's until the mid to late 70's and they had the kind of heads your buddies had.  That's why you was getting such a heavy dump of water out those ports, the heads dump their water straight out through them.

Just make sure you do reqular decarbs on it.

yeah this motor is a '78, same year as my friends, but the heads are different. Was there a difference between the "javelin" model and the base model?

Just for the heck of it I looked at the parts breakdown for the V-4's up to 1980 and they all had that head without the T'Stat housing.  I guess since I've only messed with the V-6's, I just assumed the V-4's were the same motor minus two cylinders, quess that assumption did what they say assuming will do.

alright, so I'll just decarb it twice a year, and run keep running seafoam through it. Kind of amazing they dont have thermostats though.

just in case anyone needs it for reference, the thermostats are located in the casing with the arrow. 3 bolts and its free.