For the love of God put a good shower on it, also how many hours do you put on it per year? I chnge my oil at 20 hour intervals, Mercury Oil only, and use the Halo style shower. It seems to work for me, but all boats put different loads on the drives. I run an extremely high X, at this point my drives owe me NOTHING they will blow next year.

Set up on a xr needs to be done wright or they will kill them self .
But they are a clankie gear so if you are real snappie on the throttle on and off they dont like that were a regular gear set will take it a little better less play between the teeth but xr gears are stronger but also eat more power so there are pros and cons to both.

The bravo is only as good as we are throw some beers into the mix a little rough water and:pray:

synthetic oil and teague top cap worked for me....amsoil severe gear 75w110 in my xr,pushing 600hp

What do we have here? Another broken Bravo 1 upper as we speak?:whistle: http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/w...avo-upper.html

50-60 hours on 540's 600+ hp on a 42 Fountain with 5 blades, they don't owe me anything, I'm just looking for a spare for next summer :lolhit:

damn random, 5 blades and theyre still together!!!

Do you success stories get much air time? Meaning are your drives running deep? My little boat with the 2" shorty leaves the water a lot. I try to be quick with the throttle but cringe every time I re-enter the water with too much RPM. (4 blade Bravo 1)

I will say yes to the air time also my x is so high that i cant get on plan with a 3 blade prop and some 4 blades wont get on plane either .

And like you when i miss a re-enter i cringe on whats going to break but i have also spun a hub on a drive coupler out to thats somthing else that can bite you but not very common.

475 hrs on a newer swept back Stock Bravo 1 120 hrs with 600 Hp the rest was with stock 320, small light boat running lots of rpm 5,600-6,000 wot 3 blade props and it gets a bit of air time, careful on the re-entry's I'm prolly on borrowed time, if and when it lets go I'll go back with the stock B1. Good luck

Drive showers ARE worth the minimal dollars they cost.
Do you ever make a long run at fast cruise, then load your boat on the trailer and see white chalk on the outdrive? That's baked-on minerals from the water. It bakes on because the outdrive was HOT.

Go run your boat at WOT or "close to" WOT for a couple of minutes. Pull back the sticks and as soon as you're stationary, kill the ignition and jump in the water behind the boat. Put your hands on the drive just below the upper gearcase. Ouch. Hot Hot.

Put a $150 shower on it. Repeat.
Amazing. It's now just nicely warm.

Aluminum has a thermal expansion ratio of TWICE that of steel or cast iron.
At elevated temperatures, bearings get looser in their housings - making them less stable. Mesh between the gears opens up. Fasteners stretch, and fatigue more. Oil breaks down faster, and gets thinner.

Whatever Bravo solution you run, a shower is cheap and helpful (as long as you are getting water fed to it most of the time). Billet top caps are also much stronger than factory caps and resist deflection much better. Additionally, many billet caps also have shower ports built into them.

I'm just saying those goodies give you better odds regardless of the other factors.

MC