Technical 181 GM 4 Banger

Hey guys, I'm new here. I recently got a boat for free! It is a 199X Baretta Boat. I don't know the exact year yet because I haven't checked the ***le yet, but it has a 181 GM 4 banger which I have read is a beefed up GM 153. I have been looking around for a while and found out how hard it was to find good intake manifolds and headers for this engine. I was planning on building custom intake and exhaust, but I started thinking and had the idea to look up the head design for both the 153 and the 151 Iron Duke. I noticed that despite having very different designs, they had the same head stud pattern and also use the same head gasket. My thinking is that I would be able to just take the 181 head off and put on a ported and polished iron duke head and be good to go. I thought I would ask here because I know very little about these engines and have found nothing about an Iron Duke head on this engine. Hope I can find some good info here!

 

I have owned several of these engines. I have never heard of a 151 Iron Duke head fitting this application. These little motors are basically a 6 cylinder Chevy with 2 cylinders eliminated. Many 6 cylinder parts fit the 4 cylinder motor. In terms of an intake manifold, you can buy a 3 one barrel aluminum intake, and shorten it eliminating the center carb and weld it back together. You'll end up with a cool little 2 carb manifold that will bolt right on.

 

There is a very good thread on here about them.

Called something like the elusive 18 mercruiser banger thread.
Post count is in the 1000th, info I second to non, and pics are good.

If you are on the app go to Google and search: elusive banger GM mercruiser HAMB.
There should be some reading to do.

 

I think that's the big Mercruiser (224) thread.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-elusive-224-3-7-mercruiser-banger.256713/

 

Yes, but there is a lot info on 181 and 153 too.

 

I think these are popular with the oval racers (Midgets) and you'd think there would be a lot of hop up stuff available. Gary

 

Thank you everyone for your help! I will look for those posts sometime today! Hope to find out some good stuff!

 

IronDuke is Pontiac. 153/181 is Chevy

 

The 181s were in a lot of Hyster forklifts a few years ago.