Ah, the shower debate! I'll save that for another day!

Ill start the shower debate for you there was some testing done years ago they put a temp prob in a drive and flooded it on top it did help a little .

I myself on the race boat use a drive shower and take all exhaust water because my exhaust is dry and i dump it on top of the drive dose it help hell if i know but iguess it cant hurt.

I will try to find that test and post it.

Your way of doing it makes the most sense. This has been discussed in depth before and on multiple forums. Some have lost up to 3 mph from dragging pick-ups through the water. Others report no significant reduction of oil temperature, meaning it's main benefit is keeping the drive clean. The oil circulates so any temp probe needs to be mounted below the cap or you are most likely just measuring external temperature. If it really made much difference then Mercury would most likely have included some kind of external water jacket to cool the oil. The drive does get hot and chalky on the outside but videos have shown that it is far from being high and dry, there is a lot of water flying around back there. I have discussed this to death and decided not to run a shower. It's a blind faith, it can't hurt kind of thing. But it CAN hurt if the pick-up(s) scrub speed.

Carl, I've tested back to back with and without shower same day withn 10 mins. apart and had ZERO mph loss, I'm running a Livorsi on my set-up that has a single short pick up, I do not have a temp probe on my drive so I can not atest to the actual temp loss but I am in the camp that as long as I dont loose speed thats it cheap insurance, I too am running a fair amount of HP and spin it to 5,800-6,000 rpm's. As far as Merc not putting one on them thats another debate on wether Merc wants to sell parts or design a product that will not break, I think the bottom line here is most of us are expecting more out of our Bravo's than what Merc intended, theres a reason Merc warrants the stock Bravo and rates it up to 400HP spinning it up to 5,200 not 500-600-700 hp spinning them at 6,000 or above. If used within their HP ratings and intended RPM ranges they hold up pretty well it's when we up the HP and rpm is when they heat up and then require more cooling, my .02 only. Steve

Thanks for the input, Steve. Your boat is a monster! I know I am in the minority on this. We'll see, I'll keep an open mind before spring.

This thread is an interesting read for me. Makes me feel better about my my decision to upgrade to B1's from Alphas behind twin 400 HP/450 TQ SBC's.
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They run deep behind a 3 ton 24* Deep Vee....should be very reliable.

Correct me if I am wrong but with dry exhaust you simply never mix the water with the exhaust gasses, correct? The water still travels through the exhaust jackets to keep the exhaust cool and is then dumped instead of being mixed. So, wouldn't that mean you are dumping warm/hot water on your drive?

Can always put -2" lowers on them

Yes on the warm water but warm water is better than no water plus i run my engine cold about 110 deg and the oil temp is around 230 deg so the water that is hitting the drive is not to bad as far as temp.

My drive is high enough that no water really touches the top when we are running so all the flooding i can get is good.

Between flooding water on it and and amsoil the white heat chaulking on the top of the drive has went away for the most part and i would have to say that what we must be doing something right because i raced for almost 3 yrs on the same drive before it broke this year.

Or maybe its just my super human throttling skills

[QUOTE=thirdchildhood;3783815] If it really made much difference then Mercury would most likely have included some kind of external water jacket to cool the oil.
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The XR has a finned top cap. Is this for looks or to help cool?

I agree that the bravo 1 when used in its HP rating (of 400?) no external cooling is needed.