Vince -- The pictures are so poor that I cannot make out the date code with any precision, nor the relief and spring passage for the side oiler function. It may be a side-oiler cast block, but not drilled for the functioning of the side oiler passages, etc. Too, while it looks clean, it is the water passages and the backs of the cylinder walls that take the salt water abuse. Since it is a block, and not the crank, you don't have to worry about the crank being reverse rotation, which is common on marine engines. I'd suggest that if you are interested in it further that you talk with the seller and obtain much more detailed information in the form of pictures and mircometer readings on the cylinders, the cam bearing passages and main bearings and caps. With any big block Ford you need to careful about "core shift", which while not easy to explain, in case you don't already know, is the tendency for bore core plugs to shift in the sand casting process; meaning the that all of the bores do not align with one another. To test that it is best to have the block scanned for same.
