Re: forgot oil
Certainly did some damage, but probably not that bad. I ran my '74 150hp Mercury for about 10 minutes at WOT with no oil.

It seized, but after using about twice as much oil as usual I got it to turn over slowly and start. At first it would barely run, but after a few minutes it seemed to run as good as before. A few hours later it died permanently - though I thought it was because of the oil problem, it was actually because the distributor seized up as well, a completely unrelated problem.

<br /><br />After that I tore the motor open, 1 cylinder was in very bad condition, another was slightly scuffed, and the remaining 4 actually still had factory hone marks and no scuffing. The bearings all looked fine too. I would do a compression test on your motor, and if it has removeable heads unlike mine, you might want to take them off and look at the cylinders.