OMC outdrive power handling capability
 

Hello,

I have an 89 Donzi 18 Classic with a 5.7 king cobra (not the cone clutch I believe) I am looking into repowering. I'm wondering if the outdrive will be able to handle the power of a 383 stroker?

If its the King Cobra you should be fine....if you do a search here and on the net you will find the King Cobra and the Bravo came out fairly close to each other...not sure which was first but the other was a redesigned copy of the first, or so I remember reading that....anyway the Kings were run behind bigblocks all the time so you should be able to handle 400hp easy. I know reading one guy with a liberator running 500hp through one....but in the end its just like any drive out there....take it easy out of the hole and pull back on the sticks if you leave the water and go air-born and it will last.

It was my understanding that the king cobra was omc's answer to the bravo. Finding parts is tougher & more expensive but they do work good. Make sure you seal everything with gasket sealer, pressure and vaccum test or they will leak. Just my experience with them. Randy

If its not the later cone clutch king cobra, then it is just a regular cobra upper with a slightly larger (don't know how much stronger)lower, still dog clutch shift though. I never had trouble with the uppers but did with cobra lowers kept blowing them 375 horse small block.

Short answer: No.

yes no problem..i have a customer with a ford 468 pushing close to 500 hp and over 550 ftlbs tq...and a fourblade pushing a 211 liberator...he has about 400 hours on it and still rocking,like anything easy out of the hole and it will last..

hmm, seems to be the same results I found when I did a search, which was kind of a mixed bag. It is not the cone style clutch, as I believe that didn't come around until 1993 or so.

...thinking cone clutch was available around 1990. If yours has a hump on top of it, then it is a cone clutch King.

I'm aware, however mine is most definitely not a cone clutch.

It will hold up fine on such a light boat. The shift cable not being perfectly adjusted gave them a bad rep.