bravo 3 , who makes a stronger/better upper
 

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i recently bought a boat with bravo 3 drives . one drive blew already , it is the upper that let go . i was told the bravo 3 uppers break often and i could replace it with either an imco upper or a bravo xr upper


what is the best upper ?

should i have a different upper bolted to my bravo 3 lower?

thanks in advance

the boat is a 45 wellcraft excalibur with 502 415 hp engines

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Help Pleasr
 

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somebody has to know something , when it comes to bravos



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IMCO and Max Machine both make stronger upper cases, that flex less than the Bravo case. That being said, the weak link in all of them, is the upper gears, which are stock XR in all of them. The solution to this is to purchase IMCO SCX uppers, which have larger gears than the IMCO SC or other Bravo based drives . They are much stronger. If you are sold on the idea of keeping your B-III lowers, they will bolt to the SCX uppers with an addapter down shaft. 'The strongest solution would be to purchase the SCX drives complete, but you are looking at something like 15K a side. Just my guess on the price.

Hope this helps,

Chris

thank you

i was told it wouldnt make sence to goto a single prop lower ,this is a heavy boat and i was told it would lose speed with a single prop



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I disagree .. 5 and 6 blade props hook up extremely well, and are less expensive than buying and testing with duo-prop setups. I have yet to see a duo-prop that was faster than a properly set up single prop application.

Chris

GDM I have a 38 Fountain Express Cruiser with twin 425 hp and Bravo IIIX drives. I believe the X is for a steel tower and the top cap is heavily reinforced. These drives have been working great for this boat and it's 13,500 lbs. I would think that if all you are pushing is 415 hp, you should be able to find some Bravo IX or Bravo IIIX uppers. If you find the Bravo IX uppers, you will most likely need to change the upper gears to get the correct ratio. The lower gear ratio's are different for the BI vs. BIII. That being said, you might want to skip the B3 lowers and go with an BIXR and try the five blade maximus props. They would give you the mid range you need for the heavy boat. You will most likely need a 1.65:1 BIXR drive to spin the five blade pitches that are available. I think they only go down to 26" pitch. I plan on changing to B1X with imco shorties and five blades on my Fountain. Good luck!!!

i was thinking the same thing



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interesting , i guess my options are endless



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I didn't think the SCX upper would bolt to a Merc lower? I thought it had to be an IMCO lower?
WTF do I know anyway? If it will bolt up, I'm buying 2. :ernaehrung004:

Yes... The SCX upper will bolt to a Bravo lower. You have to change out the downshaft in the Bravo lower to a different down shaft that is made by IMCO for the conversion. Other than that.. pretty straight forward.

Chris