I appreciate that this may unleash the floodgates of opinion and rant,
but that's what I'm looking for...! I'm building a 30' cutter, and am
at the point where I need to get an engine in place. 20 H.P. +/- is
what the plans call for (traditional reduction gear driving prop
shaft).

I've narrowed the field down to the Kubota variants and Yanmar,
specifically:

Universal M3 20B
Beta Marine BD 722
Phasor P3-20-SM
Yanmar 3YM20

The first three are all based on the same 3 cylinder Kubota block
which has been around for a while; the last (also 3 cylinder) is so
new it's not yet shipping. The Universal and Phasor are available for
about $5.7K, the Beta (I assume largely because it's imported from the
UK and the dollar is an also-ran at the moment) about $6.5K. The
Yanmar about spilts the difference at $6.3K (all prices are "boat
show" quotes [!]).

Volvo was not considered because parts price / availability *seems* to
be a major issue.

I'd appreciate any comments on your experience with these or similar
engines from these manufacturers - or any others that I may have
overlooked.

Mike Worrall
Los Angeles