if you have the drive and everything out gimbal and all sell it you could buy a complete used bravo 1set up cheap gimbal set up 1200 or 200 new, drives from 1000 to 2500 or new b1x for 3400 theres a guy selling them once in a while, I bought one. the bravo gear case is much better than kc plus you want a low water pick up drive. so you should get 1500 to 2500 for yours and be close to the merc stuff used. 5'' height will be fine. put I wouldn't waste your time with the omc its to fat and weak. I have done both a shortie pick up 8gps and now a konrad ace drive set up set at 3''. cost me 2 grand to have exhaust holes and gimbal cut out filled. art

I have a formula 311 sr. I raised 3 inches. with my favorite props, hydromotive q4 the boat would not plane.however any bravo offering on, the boat would plane. Just for sh%ts and giggles, what I am about to tell you next should have been on the jackass movie. I had another boat help pull me to plane out with the hydromtives. the result here was 4 mph top speed gain.3 mph cruise speed down to 3200rpm, after that ,it was slower with a bunch of slip. I put in 1 inch spacers and diffuser rings on my hydromotives and have to work the tabs and wheel to get the boat to plane, wit the spacers I lost 1 mph as opposed to not having them. The boat handeling was the same, the boat seemed to have a bit more slow speed porpise, cured with some down trim.I was in about 600.00 in materials for this project, in pluggung the holes and rerigging the boat.If you are hyd. steering you also will need to move your rams up also, and possbly indicator cable outlets. I would purshase the mercury transom jig for recutting the holes for the drives. This will greatly aid in the accuracy of the engine alignment when insytalling the drives. Another thing to think about is the front engine mounts will need to raise and move back proportionaly to the transom angle. Next I notched the transom of the boat, opened up a can of worms I still am trying to sort out, both good and bad results.Can explain another time. Last boat not least on X raising, do you have the room under the hatch, I had to remake my hatch to clear the goods underneath. If you take on this project and have questions my # is 702 604 5401 Aaron

If thats the case, then raise the X dim 3". I would not even waste my time thinking about it if you found somebody to do it for $800. You should run a drive shower no matter what. Its only about $100 and well worth it.

Josh, the boat gets on plane with no problem, see video below. My old propshaft depth was 7 1/2 inches and now it's 5 1/2".

If you want to know that you can go up 2" give me a call and I'll have to get some measurements from you on the back of the boat. The early model 36's were built for Mirage Plus props and had a lower X Dimension, the later 36's were built for Bravo I props and had a higher X Dimension.

Frank


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExbZfhvYlsA[/youtube]

Yea, it was seing your project that convinced me I could do it myself. I had a complete tearout, mine was a little more work. I problably had about 2k in parts and materials. Plywood, resin, glass, gel, sandpaper and all the other stuff adds up.

I hear ya! There was probably a bunch of little things I didn't add up along the way but hey that's boating, right!

I got 8mph raising the engines.drives 2". It cost about 3k to have the transom replaced and we cut the holes. It does take longer to get on plane but a boat tuned for speed will have that problem. I'd do the project again in a heartbeat. The boat is much more fun now.

Jeff, frank, I’ve been reading your posts & they have been very helpful. I met the other guy today & he was fairly close to the other bid. The misc. expenses that add up have me leaning towards subbing this out. Both guys are booked out till later in December so this project will be stalled for awhile.

Amazing what some guys have collecting dust in the garage? This guy had a B-class 25’ cat, surface drive, w/ a blown up blown 588” that’s been sitting there for 5yrs!

Too much to type out call me. Aaron 702 604 5401

If you are running outboards you were probably not that deep to begin with. Set your engine down to 8" deep and run it, then move it up 3" and see what you get. If your starting point was 4" then you move it up you may not see at much of a change. I know guys with light outboard boats that run there engines even or even higher than the bottom. Some boats just react different than others.