I allways put them in fwd whether its ez shift or standard, Mercury used to recomend it that way, but changed it to nuetral on outboards to prevent the rare chance the engine could start when turn the prop by hand. When you are dealing with I/O's(Alpha's anyways), you can't get the drive of with out putting it in fwd

Learned that one the hard way about the ALPHA's. I sure looked funny trying to get that thing off for the first 5 minutes:cen:.