B-max Horse Power
 

How much hp are you guys running thru these things and how many hours are you getting out of them?

I'm running triple 850's in a 46 Black Thunder and have about 75 hrs in 3 years no problems. But when I bought the boat it was eating 1 every 4-8 hrs. Done a lot of mod's to get them to work and I'm very happy with them now.

Twin 750hp. mine were just both completely freshened by waconda. One had about 150 hrs on it, the other was rebuilt by some other hack 20 hours ago. John pays great attention to detail and seems to have all the bugs worked out. I am still getting my new setup dialed in, but I'm expecting good things from these drives.

Around 750hp+ but also had to rework a few things to keep them dry inside. Cryo'd the lower gears in the IMCO's and they have been trouble free 3 seasons.
I use Mobil 1 75w-90 @ about 25-30hrs.

friend of mine has a 45ss with trip 800hp supercharged motors...he goes thru b-max's like they are underwear.

he has broken 3 this year alone...mind you he only takes the boat out 5-6 times a year

The bravo shop has a new owner (Waconda), John Pfahl is his name, great guy! I would recommend giving the NEW Bravo Shop a shot at your friends drives. John has fixed the problems with the original Bmax and has done some upgrades as well. http://bravoshop.net/

I think sometimes people expect too much from thier drives. Case in point tripple 800s on a 45 boat. Mecury uses a Number six on that kind of power. No question the Bmax is a much stronger drive than the Bravo XR. But not sure if blaming the drive for a big heavy boat with big supercharged power is fair.

I did a tour of John's drive shop (The Bravo Shop) a couple of weeks ago. John showed me all the improvements he has made to the Bmax. John is a stickler for detail and a super nice guy to boot. I'm sure the new improved Bmax's will hold up much better than the earlier models. If your running Bmax's and having problems, give John Pfahl a call and I'm sure he will get you fixed up right.

what kind of problems is he fixing?

We are changing the spec's on the shafts, heat treat, size tolerances, radius's. We are changing the housings, some parts are now billet we are inserting stainless sleeves in the old housings to fix issues with bearing fit. We have fixed the shifting issue and water leaking issues. We are going to bring and hold this drive to a new higher standard.