700hp on bravo I
 

Just built a 548 n/a motor for my 25ft v hull sunsation with the help of bob at marine kinetics (rmbuilder) My local marina guy thinks if I ease up on plane and roll into it, i can make it last. My question is, can I beef up a bravo I to hold close to 700hp? I'm afraid I know the answe, but hoping someone can tell me different.

My experience/research has shown me personally, if you take it easy to get on plane, don't snap on the throttles, keep changing the fluid, and keep the wave jumping to a minimum you can make it last.

My experience as proven twice that 730 hp will completely destroy bravo 1 outdrives., I don't care if you are easy on the sticks or not, your on borrowed time, Its just a matter of time before it lets loose. I went to a Imco SC Extreme Advantage and have no problems.

the bravo will cause you more stress then the enjoyment of boating will bring you. I agree the imco sc's are better but I blew mine up over and over driving like you were told. Obviously more hp but...

If I had your boat I would buy the asd 6 arneson on the classifieds here and call it a day. Gain speed and strength!

If there were 2 used ones I would have them already...saving my pennies

Thanks for the opinions. Is there any way to beef up a bravo I to be a little more stout?

I think Dick "mr gadgets" can answer the question better. He builds bravos and treats everyone good, plus he is not that far from you. There are lots of other companies that make "stronger" parts but nothing will last IMO.

Your least expensive up front cost would be to have a complete spare drive ready to bolt on so you don't lose any of our precious boating time. When you break, not if, take it to dick and then once its fixed you have your spare again.

My experience is that with the best parts in a Bravo XR youll get about 50 hours in the ocean and around 100 on lakes taking it easy.

Gadgets is really good - so is acrticfriends.


Uncle Dave

I'm currently running a Mr Gadgets XR built drive and so far so good. holding up to 700 hp.

How do I get ahold of mr gadgets and how much coin is it gonna take to get it beefed up? Thanks again for all of the replies

Imco and Teague build the same thing.

Gadgets is likely a better deal, but good parts and work are never "cheap".

Looking for a record of what I paid- I didnt buy it stand alone so I may not be able to decipher the price.

CB-BLR and KAP are also pretty good drive info resources here from high HP user perspectives.

UD

drive
 

Mr Gadgets / Dick Tryce very helpfull guy done some work for me and i live in England shipped the drive to Dick and he shipped it back one of the good guys phone 616 335 8446 hope this helps regards paul

Perfect! Thank you

At the risk of sounding like a "default" answer, search around for a deal on a NXT dry sump unit. They're rated around 700-800 but I've seen them take up to 1K HP and not have any breakage or oiling issues.


http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q...hrist1/NXT.jpg

I wanna see some pics of that sunny..my buddies got a 25 with a stock 330, and it likes to get squiry with that little motor, I could only imagin it with 700 horse..oh, and in my boat, it had a 711 horse on a stock bravo..it lasted..kinda..

I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Dick recently (Mr Gadgets) and I can also attest to the fact that he's a great guy and really knows his stuff. Heard nothing but positive reports from others who use him as well. I was going to have him do my Bravo's, but unfortunately the timing didn't work out. If you don't have a deadline, he would be my first choice. I ended up going with All American Drive (George). He's done a ton of testing and offers an unconditional 2 year warranty on his work. Check out his website for his ModMax line of Bravo's. Has a couple drives he builds on the Bravo platform that will hold over 700hp. Plus the 2 year Warranty is a nice bonus.

Just got my drive back from All American Drive Service (George). My XR has everything new inside. Had all the gears and clutch shaft cryo'ed, lower gears rim polished and then I had all the gears and clutch shaft surface treated with special process that him and I are working on. I'm the test guy for the new process and can't wait to give it a try.
Also had him add a billet top cap with a larger bearing along with a larger bearing in the bottom of the upper with his new steel tower.
From seeing all the clutch shafts he has laying around that have wear from those small needle bearings it's a good idea to upgrade those.
George is a good guy and nice to work with. He is working very hard to improve the drives with some of his own products that are made locally.
Just bolted the drive on the boat last night so hoping to get it wet in the next couple of weeks.

How Much $ for that set up ?

Whats the point of having that much power and having to baby it, worry about breaking it, down time etc...Thats like building a race car and putting a weak 10 bolt on it.


I had a 600SC coupled to a stock bravo, that went boom, then a Mr. Gadgets Bravo.. that went boom (those were crappy ZX gears thou , bad advice), I couldn`t justify spending $14K on a IMCO in a boat worth $30K but after two drives you`re pretty much there.
And with the IMCO at least you don`t have to try to dance on eggshells.

Max Machine Worx will build you a bravo that will last..

You would have to call George @ AADS and have him get you a quote. We worked out a deal because I did a lot of research on what materials the internal gears, shafts... are made out of and also did a work-up on the heat treat hardness and process of the components. Lastly I worked out the process for the special surface treatment.
The surface treatment reduces friction by over 6 times so that should make the XR gears turn a lot easier and put less stress on the case… Hardness is also greatly improved for wear. MPH gain should be a plus!
I have access to a spectrograph and a full metallurgical lab for checking the analysis and hardness of the materials and we are working on improved versions of internal parts together.
He has fair prices. Check out his web page.

I will only have to baby it getting on plane. I do that now so its no big deal.

You can still destroy a Bravo with that much HP in other ways besides coming onto plane. For example, cruising along and then dropping the hammer is also very hard on drives.

What about a bmax? Bigger upper gear set, larger vertical shafts, cried and treated lower gears and propshaft. Ive had them on two different black thunders and one had 700s in it.

BMAX....... +1......

Out of interests sake what hp. would be safe with a stock Bravo 1X? Just rebuilding a 496ho with raylar forged internals and BP205 cam indicated to be around 475Hp and if I put Dana Marine exhaust kit on should tip it over the 500.

not sure the actual HP specs but ive always been told its how you throttle the boat is how long they live

Will a B Max bolt to to bravo housing?

ok i have 718hp with bravo1 drive.so far it has been good. i had 500hpand 600hp with 1680hours on the drive the wore on the bottom case. i take it easy on take off and baby the drive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kojm...eature=related

If I were 'fixing' a bravo situation, this would be the order of fixes I'd throw at it (other than just avoiding "bravo butt" altogether in the first place)...

1) Arneson Conversion
2) B-Max or Imco SCX.

#1 will be costly, but cures the problem, plus you pick up some speed and gain a cool roaster-tail.
#2 will cost you some speed, but should hold up fairly well. Still not cheap though.

Pretty much anything else will be a costly band-aid, so save your pennies, you're going to be doing it again if you dont go with option 1 or 2.

Selling the boat and picking up something without BB (bravo butt) might be an even smarter move in the long run, but few people will see that as much of an option. :D

Yes, I have Merc ITS with Bmax's bolted directly to them.

Im running 600hp in a 32 active thunder 7500 lb boat with bravo1s but i dont boat on any big lakes or ocean so boat never launches and i babby it on plane and ease the throttles and all is ok so far about 60hrs.

what about a basicaly stock fresh hp 500 efi with a bravo 1 in a 272 baja am i on borrowed time ??

Has anyone done the Arneson conversion? I have a freshly whippled 525 with a Bravo XR that I imagine will be toast eventually. I will most likely be putting in the SCX/SC or the Arneson next winter. Any info would be great.

Pure torque will bust bravos. It literally rips the teeth off the gears. Baby it or not, if you run bigger water and have 700 lbft or more, your going to break gear sets. BTDT and after 5 or so you really get sick of paying for them.
I swapped to an SCX/SC combo and couldn't be happier. Smooth shifts, quiet and no more gear sets self destructing every 30 or so hours.

You are 100% absolutely correct. I have been there.

How often are you servicing the SCX/SC? Everything I've read and been told, the XR should be every 20 hrs. At that rate, I'm looking at 4 to 5 services a season. I like to jump on it and I know I'm living on borrowed time. What's the purpose of the added HP and torque if you can't get on it.

What kind of boat do you have?

hi Rik how ya doing? this is Jaime from Antioch. Has one been done on a 24Pantera? I remember Fin posting along time ago he was working on one with ASD. Im assuming it was a local boat, but my Pantera is the only one im aware of in the area. Thanks JAIME

I change the gear oil every secong engine oil change so 20 hrs max.

I went to the SCX because I want to be able to hammer the stick forward when I am cruising along. I do not want to have to baby the thing all the time. That takes the fun out of having the HP in the first place.

You should be relatively safe with the stock 500 efi. :) What typically fails on bravo based drives is the top gear. The 500 efi simply doesn't have enough torque to quickly damage the gear like a large SC engine will.

The only bravo based drives that should be considered reasonably robust are the ones that use a larger beefed up upper gear... such as the Imco SCX or the Bmax. The down side is these drives rob more power due to their more robust build.

You also still have to consider the options with the lower unit as well. The lower gears are also known to fail, but the vast majority of bravo failures are typically related to the upper gear. The SCX lower is more beefy, but it will rob even more speed. The Bmax historically used a bravo based lower gear, but I understand they are working on a more industrial lower and it should be on the market soon. Obviously we have no idea what kind of speed losses they'll see with this new lower. But again, the lower is not what usually fails, it's that pesky upper gear. Although, once the upper is addressed, I suppose the lower becomes the next weakest link...