Until you've owned your own and dealt with them....and I truely me dealth with them...you have no idea what you're talking about....remember my post 9...well these were my drives in the box right after I snipped the band from around the crate....now these were both just redone by Konrad and tested by them...according to them somebody opened the box and from what they said stuck a screw drives in by my prop shaft then didn't take anything and repackage the entire thing with metal band. But at the sametime do you notice the pooling drive oil on the one....the other drive looks great..no oil and you even see the greenish sealant stuff they use between the outer brass lock (or whatever its called) and the casing...yes that was done right.....look at the other and tell me if you see it...NOOOOOOOO NOT AT ALL!!!! Now how can that be after they were just redone...its a quality control issue.....

All I took off the tips of the drives was approximately a half inch and rounded out the rest to feather in. If you know so much about these drives then you tell me why they keep breaking? The engines made 745 horsepower and 740 pounds of torque and the boat weighted in at 10000 lbs. So again tell me what would you have done if you broke not one but two drives and Konrad's scratching there head????? There answer is its out of warranty nothing we can do for you thats nice to hear after I broke two drives and Mike broke three on the same boat. I now own a 2004 38 Top Gun with 725hp. behind it running sportmaster ITS and run it like I stole broke one drive in 4 years and put a new drive on from Mercury and broke it in 2 hours cause of problem put together wrong which tells you that even the factory can screw up.

Guys have been modifying the noses of drives forever and I have NEVER heard of that causing a internal gear problem, I don't own a Konrad but I build my own bravos and I think there is at least 2 or 3 inches of solid aluminum on the front before you ever get near the pinion bearing races and internally machined areas. There is un-doubtedly a different problem , it has always been a big secret when these drives break for some reason so we never have heard the true failure rate and what kinda power it takes to break them. Like I mentioned pretty much every failure thread dissappears but I do remember one a few years ago where the owner of one was being chastised for modifying the housing in some way after it failed and the big mod he made was insignifigant in my opinion , was somthing like he tapped the back of the case for a steering bar or something then when the gears blew up and self destructed everything that was brought up, sure if you bolted somthing to the drive and then the bolts ripped out and it ran out of oil or the housing cracked allowing the gears or races to get out of alignment I would believe it , as far as COSMETIC/HYDRODYNAMIC grinding on the nose , its not causeing the gears or shafts to blow, Smitty

thanks again for all the posts guys im a younger guy this is my first performance boat, im still paying mike for it and its broke, im just a lill disappointed, im just looking for info, my understanding is that the drives also failed at 45 hrs, that was BEFORE joe changed the cone, soooooo whats the reason that happened???its called quality control!!! i spoke with a man local to me that said he had his 540's rebuilt 2 times when they came back the second time he (being he is a boat mechanic) opened them up.... well guess what the he says the pinion depth and back lash was not even with in spec right out of the konrad service manual ????they got there big navy contract so they put there top builders on those projects while joey the apprentice is on my drives .. its just messed up.....and the newest revelation is now they wont even send the drives back to mike and i because they said we have a $1200 bill for shipping and tear down.... i kno its a expensive hobby but stuff like this is over the top and uncalled for....

Ive heard a few horror stories like this as well, really suprises me that konrad is letting this happen, reports like these will kill sales.

So if they are not going to ever warranty them, are you still running the Royal Purple???

How do you feel about Royal Purple Smitty???

I stopped using it in my drives.

Jim Darr......

R/P gear oil is the cheapest crap synthetic out there, I made the mistake of doing most my gear treatment durability testing with it, after spending countless hrs r/ring gears and having them heat treated, cryoed, dlc coated to find longer life etc I switched to Amsoil extreme with a little lucas gear stabilizer treatment mixed in (from the advice of Aaron at max machine worx) and my gear life immediately doubled. I am currently running the neo mix from the Bravo shop but don't have enough time on it to form a opinion (just got motor back in boat for the season and only ran it once), Smitty

Is this the stabilizer? And how much do you add per quart?
http://www.lucasoil.com/products/dis...id=25&loc=show

It's a boat and no matter what you do.......$hit breaks. Why would the manufacturer fix your drive under warranty? Nice try! LOL Just get it fixed and go boating.