Can anything be done to the alpha drives to make them support 500 hp engines?? How hard could it possibly be to switch them to bravo drives?? I am a mechanic and can easilly make 500 hp with a chev 350, fuel injection and a blower... A nova or a liberator seemed the perfect choice...everyone says good hull....solid boat... They all either have alpha or omc stern drives thou... In the auto drag world, we always build little c-4 trannies to take 500 and nitrous.. There HAS to be a solution... cutting a bigger hole and drilling a few more doesn't sound horrible....

It's not hard at all to switch them to bravo's, unbolt the alpha transom assy and bolt on the bravo, there is no converting a alpha gimbal housing to accept a bravo drive. there is nothing you can do for the alpha to take that kind of power, you could try to be easy on it, but I think it would only last minutes.

Would the bravo be the way to go, or something more along the lines of a trs??

The Alpha/Bravo conversion would be much more simple and economical. Moving to a TRS requires re-cutting the transom to accept the new gimble, adding a transmission, and relocating the engine and its mounting. Converting to a Bravo drive from Alpha requires none of these mods to the hull.

If you haven't alreaady purchased a boat, look for a Wellcraft Spyder. Same as the Nova II, but sleeker windshield, bolsters, and big blocks. I don't know if they all had Bravos behind them, but the later model years should have.

Bought it today....it IS a spyder...has alphas thou....1988, w 350 alpha twins... What are quick mods that will produce easy speed??? What shifters can i convert to??

Thanks

And buy an eliminator with Bravos. Lol just kidding good luck, but the alphas won't handle more than 300hp reliably.

The more questions I ask, the more confusion thats present.... Plenty of people say they ran alphas on scarabs w/ 500 hp for YEARS without problems... I'm figuring with all of the alphas out there, and all of the REAL performance boats that ran them, there HAS to be upgrades avaliable for them?? People say they will live fine as long as I don't jump on them out of the hole. I bought the boat yesterday...twin 350's, and I have two nitrous kits (150 hp) that I'm installing today. She ran 59mph on gps the day I bought her...the spray should have me near 70. Thank god she has twins....the alphas will be tested. I did order drive showers as well....these should help??

Well, very few REAL performance boats came with the big block/ alpha combo. It was very short lived from merc, due to many breakages. Those alphas life span will be minutes once you start slamming the engines with nos. I'm sure that anything can be done with enough time and money, but why. A set of bravos will live a VERY long time behind a hot set of small blocks.

Darrell.

you talking a MAJOR rpm increase going from 59 to 70 mph...nitrous might do it, but at the expense of valve springs flying thru the air with the greatest of ease... you could over prop it, but then it would be useless unless your on the bottle. bravos aren't cheap, but neither is rebuilding mult. alphas.