That's your choice, but it's definitely not mine...

First of all, the materials cost about $100 per year plus a couple hours of your time. Not a bad insurance policy for a $10,000 engine.

More importantly, these things are clearly documented in Mercury's manuals as being standard maintenence items every 50-100 hours or once per season.

Do you know if you still have ANY lube protecting your impeller shaft's gearing? I **know** I do, and that it doesn't have water or other contamination in it to damage the expensive drive and impeller shafts and the bevel gears on each.

Do you know if you still have any lube in your stator? I **know** I do, and that it also doesn't have any foreign stuff in there.

Do you know if your very old spark plugs are gapped properly? I **know** mine are. Have you gradually lost power and MPG over those eight years without realizing it because the ECM is being tricked by out-of-spec plugs? I **know** I haven't.

Do you know if your fuel/water separating filter is rusty inside? I **know** mine isn't. Someone recently reported on a jetboating website (can't remember which) that his SportJet was having problems. He finally tracked it down to the original(!) fuel/water separating filter, still on the engine several years later, which was absolutely full of rust. Please note that the fuel/water separating filter is AFTER the inline fuel filter. The only thing protecting your injectors ($100+ each, times six) at that point is the final filter in the vapor separator, a part no longer manufactured by Mercury and that cost well over $100 when it WAS available. Are you comfortable gambling with multi-$100 components? I'm not.

It's your choice. As for me, I'm very comfortable spending ~$100 and a couple of hours to KNOW the status of my very expensive engine and keep it in prime condition.

Not a flame, just a point of view.