1985 Merc 35 Pistons - Direct Charge vs. Power Ported

[Chinewalker]

I took in this lost puppy last week, 1985 Mercury 35hp. The two bolts that held the water tube onto the adapter plate between the powerhead and tower housing had fallen out, with the end result being that it had overheated. Bores look fair - nothing a little honing won't clean up, but both pistons got some good scuffing.
Here's the question - will Power Ported pistons work in it? I have several of them out of a 1981 Merc 80hp. They're the pistons with the approx. 1-inch diameter hole in the skirt on the intake side.

 

[emckelvy]

You can use a power-ported piston in a non-power-ported block, the hole in the piston won't make any difference since there would be no power-port passages in the block, thru which the intake charge could flow.........ed

p.s. caveat of course that the bores measure out the same. I know in the past Merc has used larger-sized pistons in some of their Big Twins, but it'd be easy enough to compare part numbers or mike the bores.

 

[Chinewalker]

Thank you! I figured it would work, but just wanted to confirm. And yes, all of the inlines of that era shared the same bore/stroke configuration - Mercury loved their modularity! The 35/40 twin was approx. 33 cubes cubes, the 75/80 was 66 and the L6's were 99.