Pro's & Con's of going from XR Sportmasters to Arneson's?
 

I'm considering changing my drives this winter from XR's to something that will hold up with my current HP or if I ever upgrade the motors to something larger.

Arneson's ASD6 or ASD7M are particularly interesting and would consider one of these, but don't know which would be right for my application.

I running a 3600 Supercat with 525EFI's & Whipple Chargers pushing around 730 HP and know the Bravo's are a weak link.

If anyone has some experience with using these on this type of application I'd love to hear the good and bad or switching to them.

Thanks....Jim

I have been looking in this direction also. The only downside to me is the recreational aspect if playing and swimming around the boat. Those Big old props are hanging way out there. I would purchase some type of prop guards that can easily be attached when we go in the water. Performance and reliability wise, I don't see a drawback.



Darrell.

I've seen some prop guards that that Arneson has to fit over the top of the props to give you a little protection.

My XR's are so far back right now and I'm running H-6 Hydromotives, they will impale you if you aren't careful so that issue would be about the same.

One question is how far back they would actually extend compared to my currect set-up which has standoff boxes.

Jim

With your stand off boxes,( if you have the 12" box) the props will be pretty close to the same position. (eyeballing of course). BTW , with the H6's and XR's on a big boat like you have, Those drives are timebombs. I'll only use 4 blades because I'm worried about breaking parts.


Darrell.

I would not disagree with your assessment at all regarding the problems with the boat weight, XR's, Props and HP. It's what was on the boat when I purchased it and know they can be a big issue,

I'm fairly easy on the sticks but don't want to get into the habit of having to re-build or replace drives all the time which seems to be an ongoing issue with XR's with bigger HP and a boat that weigh's over 10K lbs.

Especially since most of my boating is on weekends down at my lake house and would prefer something that is as bulletproof as possible.

Jim

This 3600 was rigged with ASD7's and 850's. Runs just fine after some tweeking.

The props sit about as far back as a #6 boat.

I've heard the prop danger issue over and over again with regard to Arnesons and I fail to see the problem. If you're real worried about this I've seen dozens of rollbar boats on the market that have the props hidden safely under the boat, like the MasterCraft Xstar.

Now back to hi-performance supercats; The props are all sharp and dangerous, stay away from them and you'll be ok.

Right now I'm running 730 hp, but in the future I might be upgrading to 850 hp or larger and the Konrad's if what I've seen are at least as expensive if not more and require a fair amount of re-tooling when changing from the current Bravo set-up and might not hold up with the higher hp motors.

?? I guess you never have people swimming around your boat. If my wife and friends were swimming around the boat(as we do every weekend) I would just want to be sure there were no injuries. Or it that not macho enough.


Darrell.