Drive recommendation
12-08-2016, 10:09 PM
#21
Had a customer two years ago with 700 hp in a 27' Fever. It had an SC drive on it. SC didn't hold up. Blew the upper and wasted the transom assembly at the same time.
I re-rigged him for a BMax 1.50 ratio. Boat didn't loose any speed and it's been two years since I did the job and no failures.
At the 700 hp level, you'll need to refresh the lowers every 3 seasons or so, depending how you drive it. Just change the oil every 10-15 hours and monitor the fluid. If you ever see a metal flake in the oil, keep a closer eye on it. If at the next 10-15 hour sevice there's more metal flake then the first time, it's time to tear the lower down and put a new gearset in.
I run 965HP on BMax HT's. My uppers were freshened after 300 hours with new pinion gears. The lowers I replace every other season. You gotta pay to play.... but I don't have any failures (knock on wood).
[ATTACH=CONFIG]562455[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]562456[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]562457[/ATTACH]
I re-rigged him for a BMax 1.50 ratio. Boat didn't loose any speed and it's been two years since I did the job and no failures.
At the 700 hp level, you'll need to refresh the lowers every 3 seasons or so, depending how you drive it. Just change the oil every 10-15 hours and monitor the fluid. If you ever see a metal flake in the oil, keep a closer eye on it. If at the next 10-15 hour sevice there's more metal flake then the first time, it's time to tear the lower down and put a new gearset in.
I run 965HP on BMax HT's. My uppers were freshened after 300 hours with new pinion gears. The lowers I replace every other season. You gotta pay to play.... but I don't have any failures (knock on wood).
[ATTACH=CONFIG]562455[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]562456[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]562457[/ATTACH]
i have a 540 being built right now for a 27 ft boat with a fresh imco sc upper from imco all new gears ect. ect.
the -2imco lower i have with it, is said to be good to go but with unknown amount of hours...
will no hear in a few more weeks what the 540 goes on the dyno....
im actually second guessing my purchase of the imco sc....
12-14-2016, 06:59 AM
#22
Geronimo36
Gold Member
About 40hrs. I also had Imco SC's on my Apache years ago and would get about 20 hrs before one popped. That's why I went with BMax's and that was in 2007.
01-03-2017, 01:32 AM
#26
Charter Member # 55
Charter Member
01-03-2017, 09:21 AM
#28
Registered
There is always All American Drive Service, they will upgrade your Bravo and warranty it for 2 years and for half the price of an SCX or BMAX. Don't know of anyone else that does that.
01-03-2017, 04:02 PM
#30
Geronimo36
Gold Member
The only was I was able to recover the lost speed was two part;
1. Swap out the SCX lower for a standard bravo lower and got back 8mph. I actually built and tested an SC lower and was still 5-6mph short. The standard Bravo lower was the only thing that worked on that boat.
2. Refreshed the engine and put a larger camshaft in it. That was good for getting him all his speed back plus an additional 2-3 mph.
There have been a lot of updates done by the new Bravo Shop which includes upgraded bearings, shiming proceedures, clutch stack height modifications etc. They also came out with a 1.50 ratio upper gearset which is probably the single biggest difference because the BMax drives I have only came with a 1.30 ratio back then. That change alone helped a lot with people no longer losing speed when making the change. The Fountain I did the conversion on had a 1.50 and he told me that he only lost 1 mph with the change. My Apache, even with the 1.30 only lost 1-2mph but gained 2-3 mph in cruise speed over the IMCO SC's.
