Top Guns/bravos...need advice
 

Well the Baja is gone and I'm looking at straight bottom top guns...every one that I have looked at has bravo drives, so I gotta know...How bad are they?. I have read a 100 threads on here and some guys say they have no issues, others break them often. I looked at a beautiful 94 on Saturday that has blown 540s and the owners said it's never had a drive problem....I want the boat, but I'm a little scared of the drives..

Btw...if you have a full cabin straight bottom gun you wanna sell, message me the details and pictures...has to be the 92-99 style full cabin .

And now you'll get a hundred opinions to go a long with the 100 threads you read, just buy the boat you want,

All depends on the water your going to run in. That's a lot of power for Bravo's in a big boat.

But one sell the bravos and get imco SCX drives and your good to go

My 2000 straight bottom had 500efi's and never a problem. Ran 71-73 ish. I'd stay newer, think there a little lighter.

I've broken one Bravo I drive in 15 years of powerboat ownership..... That being said, I never had more than a 502 pushing them. The one I did break, I had rebuilt with XR gears.

Blown 540`s in a straight bottom 38' Cig and he`s never had a problem with bravos? Yeah that guy is full of $hit. What next, he keeps a unicorn in his back yard.

I agree or he runs it like a Sea Ray and NEVER beats on it....in flat water....

If you're boating on lakes in KY you may get lucky.

I understand merc must give bravos to manufacturers. If I was building "offshore" boats I'd be embarrassed to push one out of the factory with bravos on it.

With 540's you better have every upgrade available for a standard XR to get them to be reliable and that will be for a limited amount of time. I agree with going to an IMCO SC or SCX if at all possible. You can sell your current drives to get sound of your money back and have piece of mind that you can go out an run it like it was meant to be run.