I decided to buy a dedicated boat to leave at my parents in Florida instead of hauling my ranger 1300 miles there. I didn’t pay a ton for the boat, it’s a 2000 518vx with a 2012 Mercry Optimax 200HP.Long story short, the lower unit is trash. My mechanic is struggling to find anything in the area under $2,600 used that’s OEM. I’ve always heard SEI is an option, in fact, that bad one that’s on it, is a 2016 SEI that clearly wasn’t taken care of. After a phone conversation with SEI they will sell me the sei 216 gearcase that will bolt up. From my understanding, at some point, they stopped offering their 3 year warranty on merc motors consider “pro xs” or 200HP and up. I know there are a lot of reviews, mostly bad but some just fine. I’m interested to know if anyone has experience running this lower unit on this motor. This boat is literally going to get used six to eight days a year so I’m not looking to put much money into it and I’m already upside down from it having more problems than I thought. Any input is appreciated .

I haven’t ran one personally but I know a guy that used some and he said they work fine. People hit lots of logs around here