one engine / twin drive setup???
 

is there ever been such a beast or has a branch from the crazy tree broken off and hit me in the head?
Just wondering if theres ever been a setup to hook up a twin drive setup to a single engin? I know that some of the drag boats use a gear system bt i was thinking about having forward and reverse capabilities and being able to still controll shifting of each drive sepperatly. Let me know :)

Yes...Imco was working on one a while ago. I'm not sure what stage it's in right now, but a few magazines had pictures and an article on it a year or so ago. Seemed like a great concept, I suspect you'd beed big power though to spin the main transfer case as well as the two drives. Seemed like a good option for the 28' range boats.

They tested a boat in Powerboat a few months ago with the IMCO setup.

My uncle has one in his Dorado. It has a single volvo diesel and splits the power to twin volvo duo props. Might be good for a fishing boat, I don't see the application in the high performance world. What happens when one drive breaks and you put 100% of the power through the other drive? That's assuming the first one didn't lock up...

Nordic has one of their 21' Blaze ski race boats equipped with the imco splitter system i believe. This is the boat in the ad that you see on the 2 page ad that you will see behind the front cover of many boat mags. I read a review of one about a year ago, but i cant for the life of me remember where. Their website www.nordicpowerboats.com has some pics of the boat, but none where you can really see the drives.

Assuming that they are shiftable drives, shift the broken one into neutral, and take it easy on the throttles - pretty much the same thing you do when you break a Bravo in a twin setup....

While we're at it, my vote would be for a single 1350 Lycoming and a pair of ASD6's in my 38 Formula.

Not being too much of a smart ass, but if you had a single engine-single drive boat you would still be in the same situation - that is if you had a single engine-dual drive setup with a drive failure.

I like the idea of what IMCO is doing, eliminating the propellor torque, and balancing the torque is a good idea. The second drive also shares horsepower load, for example a singledrive setup may have a blower motor with 800 propshaft hp, with the dual drive each drive is now sharing the 800 hp (in theory 400 prop shaft hp per drive). I have never seen this application in person, as hopefully someone can give us an update on their experinence with this setup in a pleasure boat scenario.

A few months ago someone posted a few photo's of Randy Davis' ski race boat with this set up: Paul Pfaff turbo motor, IMCO splitter and two IMCO/Bravo drives. If I remember correctly, the boat pulled the winning skiers at both the Nationals and Worlds Ski Races. Its a sure way of getting 1,000+ hp to the water without tearing up your drives every run. Its a perfect set up for hi hp/torque applications where two drives are preferred for speed, handling, docking and longevity...

Does anybody know how much power loss there is with this unit? How many throttles would there be? If there are two for forward & reverse, which would control the rpms? I tried to find it on Imco's pathetic web site, but there is no mention of it. What a great concept though, you save money on the extra engine, but have the prop hook-up and reliability of two drives.

There are a LOT of drag boats running single engine, twin props. they are the fastest drag boats on the planet and have no torque steer.