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.

he is currently using them

do you have $60k x 3 you can give him??? the boat came with b-max's

What is he breaking the lowers?

Then he needs throttle lessons!

hahaha no offense but he has probably had more go fast boats than a lot of members on here including you (this is his 10th-12th)...i dont think he needs throttle lessons

yea all broken lowers...

T-838hp 834 ft lb. blower motors in a 36' Apache, 10,500 lbs dry. I've owned them since new in 2006 and just hit the 260hr mark. Blew an upper 2 years ago when the drives had 200 hours. Had 1 issue with a lower at 100 hrs but it was a cheap fix. I replace lower gears ever other season and lower bearings each season. Overall I'm very happy with them.

By comparison, I couldn't get IMCO Extreme SC's to last more than 20hrs befor popping. They were junk.

Oh yeah, 90+ percent ocean running. :)

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

With the exception of the vertical shaft, most the parts in the lower are Merc.

Does he have the carbon steel prop shafts or the SS?

to be honest...i dont know.

i know that he has 2 backup units for then the 3 on-board kick the bucket. the last poker run he blew one and a second was stuck in forward.

Have him give me a call.

One of my favorite videos.....:cool:

Thanks Man!:coolcowboy:

I really wish we had the video cameras going this day about a month ago. Starts to get interesting around page 13.; http://lucididee.zenfolio.com/p357488671

X2