Need some help , I need an outdrive and found a great deal on a bravo 1 with 1.65 , mine has 1.50 .can anybody tell me the real difference between the two I'm running a basically stock 454 , please any info would be great and I'm dying to get out on the water and bravo 1 's in decent shape been real scarce for a decent price .....

You can make it work with bigger pitch props to compensate for the gearing.or swap the gears.my dad had his b3's torch a set of gears, the dealer put the wrong gears back in and changed them again.don't recall the cost or labor time though.

What blew on your old drive, upper or lower? The gear ratio change on Bravos is done in the lowers isn't it? So if your old lower is good just swap lowers, or you can play with props.

That sounds good , my bravo upper siezed up , but I also need a new prop thanks !!

I've had both (different boats though). Going to a 1.65 will mean a 2-4 inch pitch increase and your hole shot will suffer. But the drive will bolt right up and work fine.

A B1 with 1.50 ratio uses upper gear set with 32/27 teeth, the 1.65 uses 30/23 teeth. The lower gears are listed as the same for each drive.
I have never seen a set for the 1.65, so I can not comment on them for strength. The 1.36 upper gear set has a shorter tooth length on the driven gear. In that case making a 1.36 drive is best done swapping lower gears.
In this case with 1.65 there isn't a lower set that you can use. So what ever pro's or con's are associated with that ratio would be in the upper gear set.
A prop swap would be needed to match your rpm, just how that affects the boat might be better addressed by calling a good prop shop.
Hope that helps.
Dick

Tanks for clearing that up Mr. Dick. There is sooo much I don't know, still learning though.

Yw fbp!