alpha one with a 454, how many hours will i get?
 

hey everyone....i have a 87 velocity 22, its a light boat and im itching to get it on the water. i just bought a 454 mercruiser, rated at 330 hp, but the only exhaust manifolds i have for it are stainless marine, so im guessing this will add atleast 20-30 hp to those figures. as of now the boat has an alpha one on it, and as we all know there only rated for 300 hp. im wondering how many hours you guys think i could get out of this drive with this setup? id really like to get the boat on the water, and i just bought a b1 xr drive, but am awaiting the arrival of the gimble. i was planning on waiting to install this until we finish our other motor build, working on a 502 for the boat, but that wont be finished till august more than likely(my pockets are full of air at the moment), so if i could get around 50 hours out of the alpha one id be happy. im almost done all cosmetic repairs and to be able just to take the boat out for a cruise would be nice...... so roughly, how many hours would i be looking at with an alpha one and a 454......

As long as you don't air it out,or hit it hard out of the hole you can get a lot of hours out of it,just can't beat on it hard.What is a B1 trs???????? JOHN SR

You could get 1000 hours from it if you run it most of the time at normal cruise and don't do water ski type starts with it. The 300-350 rating on Alphas is just a guideline and there were a pretty fair amount of 330 Alpha boats made, even twins like in the Pachanga 32. And if you blow an Alpha you can get another for about 500 on craigs. Yeah, what is a B1 TRS?

sorry about that, i meant a bravo I xr, i bought it down in miami for a legitimate price, waiting to see the condition of it when it arrives.shipping wasnt to cheap though....

now i dont plan on bashing the boat, it just figure it would be nice to get out on the water and other troubles i might come across would arrise before i drop in the newer motor.

also, correct me if im wrong, but i was told the b1 xr would hold up to 600 hp without any problems? is this correct?

yea, the only downside to blowing the alpha would be downtime off the water and maybe not making alot of money on the resale. my old alpha drive went on my 4.3l sweet 16, and that thing was only pushing 200 hp i believe.....

You are not going to be able to hammer too hard on an XR with 600 HP. They will break in racing conditions with stock 525 HPs, regularly. But once again if you respect it a little and can throttle then you should be okay. What was the name of the guy you got that from? I think I used to know who owned that boat.

Stock Alpha on my previous boat survived the original 260/350 followed by a 300/350 followed by a 310/454 and finally a 385/502
It had close to a thousand hours when it finally gave up , the last 250 of which were big block powered and about 50 of which were running in poker runs..

i believe the guys name was dan, but he had never had the boat on the water and had bought it from a man in pasadena..so that might be who your thinking off.

yea, im not as worried about throttle control blowing the outdrive as much as coming out the water, so i was thinking as long as i could keep the prop in the water i should be fine for awhile.

I avoid hard hole shots with mine and am running 400hp+ (ZZ430) with twin SBC...I fly it as often as permissible :).

I have smoked an upper gear case..upgraded with new gears...and some other mods over the years..

If you behave with it - and your Alpha is in good shape - they can actually last a long time. I would recommend Royal Purple or some other good synthetic drive lube and maybe a drive shower to maximize your chances though. The biggest things that will kill you are hard starts and flying the boat without throttling the motor properly. BTW, the heavier the boat, the harder it is on the drive, so you're probably OK with your hull.

To give you some indication, there's a guy about 3 miles down the lake from me with an '87 Pachanga with the 454 / Alpha combination that's 100% original. He babies the hell out of it though.

If you put the alpha after maket on it it will last forever they have a 3 year no falt warenty on them and only cost 1300 bucks. You will have a lot of money in it changing over. I think I would sell the xr and your alpha,buy one of the after market alpha drives run it forever and put money back in your pocket. JOHN SR

well, fender jack, that would be a good idea if i planned on keeping the 454, but like i said earlier i plan to drop this 502 into by late summer and i know that will tear the alpha to shreads. i just would like to be out on the water if possible, a 454 in this boat will still be plenty of fun, plus i got the whole bravo xr with gimble for 3600 shipped, so for that price i might as well keep it. im a younger guy on a limited budget, so i dont have the funds to do it all at once, but step by step this boat will get their.

This thread puts my mind at ease about using my Alpha behind the EFI 383 I'm building. Thanks! :)

Alpha 1 aftermarket options
 

I'm going thru the same thing - alpha 1 gen 1 on a 454. I haven't been able to find the proper aftermarket drop in drive - it should be a 1.32:1 ratio unit - sterndrive engineering offers a 1.47:1 version, but with no warranty. SE calls it their SE106. However, I bought the boat with an SE106 - I'm assuming it's the 1.47 version. that said, it lasted me only 1 full season - probably 3 or so before me, so it lasted the duration if it had the warranty. You can get the mercruiser 1.32 rebuild kit, which includes the gears and everything elso for $800 ish. So worst case: buy the SE106 complete unit for $1295 plus the rebuilt kit for $800, and put 4 hours in the rebuild, and you have a 'new' alpha 1 that will last properly. BTW, I am not sure why the 1.32 is called that - the gear ratio is actually 1.25:1 (the gears are 20 tooth and 16 tooth). If anyone could illuminate me on that, I'd appreciate it.
I have a heavy boat - about 7500lbs - for this setup. If I had the cash, I'd switch over to a Bravo 1 or 3, but that is an extensive swap, requiring the motor to come out, etc. I am currently wrestling with the choise - just put in an SE106 1.47 for $1300, or hope that my upper case is good and get the rebuild kit (which will require a new prop), or get a new upper case and do the rebuild.

My alpha gen 1 was used behind a 375hp 454 for the last 5 years on a 22’ boat and never a single problem.

Lighter boat equals longer life
 

What's the weight of your 22 pachanga? What ratio? I deal with gearboxes in my work world, and the rule is the lower the output shaft rpm, the smaller the allowable input motor, and it's almost a linear relationship. So you may be running a similar motor, but a higher ratio, which means your prop is spinning faster. I'm thinking I should be running a higher ratio, which seems to go against convention, but running a smaller prop that can spin faster, moving less water with each rotation. My top speed is much lower than yours (265 Sedan Bridge), probably half, so I could run the same prop as you but spin more slowly, but that would kill the drive. Ugh - I don't think I have all the pieces of this puzzle! But I'm not sure who does.

I don’t remember the ratio but I run a 19 pitch Ballistic prop. I do know that they are not the 50:1 ratio or whatever it is.