What Power to Pick?
 

I'm about to order a new ride and would appreciate your ideas on the power choice.

Boat: 39 Cig
Goal: 100mph+ in fresh water @ 650' above sea level.

I've been running 525's w/ XR's and enjoy the hassle free set-up but... I must reach the century mark.

From what I understand, 700-750 HP will get me there. With that I could run XR drives. But I guess my question is this, I would like to go with the Merc 850 or 1075 w/ #6 but wonder about the maintenance? I'm no mechanic.

How many hours will these motors go before they need to be rebuilt?

How do the #6 drives handle verses the XR's?

Any comments and/or suggestions would be much appreciated

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

Merc's new 700hp with new drive

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

You can't go wrong with Richie Zul power in a Lip-Ship boat.

Go for the Zul 750 N/A tunnel ram motors with your choice of drives. A friend has this same setup with Bravo1 XR drives in a 2003 Top Gun, not staggered. He has eaten a couple drives, but the motors are flawless and magnificent works of art.

If you go to VI drives, you will eat some HP up with those transmissions and drives; but your setup will be closer to bulletproof. It all depends on if you want to cross the large chasm between a Bravo boat and a Speedmaster boat. It makes the boat a different class, and the pricetag also shows the difference.

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

Will this be at the Miami show? Haven't heard of a new motor or drive from Merc. Wonder if the 700 is a pumped up 600 or a detuned 850?

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

850's with #6's is the way to go.

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

pumped up 600, there is a thread in General D. about it.

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

Do you know how many hours I can expect from the 850's before a rebuild? I've been told 50 and I've been told 100. I'm not interested in a 50 hour motor, 100+ would be OK.

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

Yes, there will be a new 700(Pumped up 600) with a new drive.
The 850 should be a 100-150 hr motor. Then just a top end. Everyone I know, including Skip from Cig, has gotten over 100hr on their 1075, and then just a top end.So the 850 should just go up from there.

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

Like 42MTI said, you should get 150 or more hours out of the 850sci. Pair that with a #6 and it's a bulletproof package.

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

Stay with Merc power...
Regards

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

OK, thanks for the help. 100+ to 150 hours with Merc 850's and #6's sounds like alot of fun to me! :evilb:

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

LostCowboy
you should talk to phil from lip ship he did one last year that was power boat of the year with a set of zul 700 And xr drives.



Rick OSG

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

buy the motors out of ricks gladiator, there bad ass

Wild

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

New Merc 700 package!!

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

If you want to stay with merc I would go with the 850's and #6's. This is a very reliable package and you can get 100 hours out of these before you have to freshen up the springs and lifters. You will have awesome technology and will be able to lay waste to the 100 mph mark. That is what I would do.
Hunna

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

Rick OSG:

I have talked to Pill, he loves the Zul motors and I plan to consider them. But the boat he set up with the 700's hit 100-101 in Florida which makes it a 98 MPH boat in OK, TX and MO. I would be pi*@ed to go out and hit 98!

The 750's should do the trick but I think to hook 750 to a Bravo is a mistake.

Maybe Zul 750's w/ the new Merc drives will be the answer.
Or, bite the bullett and go Merc 850's w/ #6?

I wonder if the new Merc drives will work with the 850's? If they're built to take up to 1,000HP it might be a really nice set-up?

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

On engines of that nature you are better off having the springs adjusted and heads torqued at the beginning of each season or even every 6 months if you run year around. Oil analysis is also an inexpensive way to determine if bearings are in good shape.

Life expectancy of the engine is determined on running conditions. In normal operation I think only expecting 100-150 hours on a set of well maintained engines is not very optimistic. Now if you are literally running the crap out of the boat that is another story.

I don't run mine hard and expect 600+ hours.

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

I would do a Zul engine package (750-800 HP) with the new Merc Drive. 105MPH with reliability. I think it would probably be considerably less coin too depending on what the new drive pricing is.

Re: What Power to Pick?
 

Yup....And i'm sure he will be the first to fool around with set-up on the new merc drive package.He will find the sweet spot
for sure