i find it funny or ironic that a guy peddles Chinese knock off stuff and everyone is beating down his door to the point whereby he is stinking rich. bravo to him but what does this say about the american ethics? by the way not to imply that mercury is not doing 100% the same thing its just that we do not know it or its not as blatant with them. i also agree that its about time that someone gives mercury a bit of competition and the irony is also that it comes from a knock off of their own product. guess the enemy came from within so to speak. i always thought when sei started making bravo parts it would put all these aftermarket bravo guys out of business and low and behold everyone is starting to purchase the chinese knock off bravo parts. its a matter of time

In my case I try to never buy Chinese products for anything I can buy american parts of higher quality for a moderate difference in price BUT in the case of these SEI gears I did exstensive testing on the MERC gears between extra/deeper heat treating , dlc coating, cryo treatement with iso rem finish with various final finishes etc . etc. I spent quite alot of time and over 5000$ doing this and looked at various ways to build better lower gears. In the end to build just a trail set of gears or have dies made was cost prohibitive vs ROI and we had no idea the protyped parts would even last as long as factory stuff. Someone else has done all the work having the Chinks build a knock off gear, I bought a set, bored them out to fit a billet xr style prop shaft with large radiuses on corners and just sent them out for cryo/iso rem treatment. I am going to put 1000 hp and ft lbs of tq to them and see what happens vs the merc stuff, will post results but it may not be until end of summer or even next summer before I have any opinion, Smitty

Thanks for all the work and great info! Please continue to keep us posted.

I have an SEI Alpha lower, I blew my original lower 5hrs after putting in my 383sbc 490hp engine. Replaced my lower with an SEI, and after 55hrs. Not a problem one out of the lower end.

I have a 1990 Larson, with a 454 MAG and Bravo 1 drive. I need a new lower unit. My drive has the Oil reseviour. I called SEI and they said that their drives only fit 1992 and up and that I would have to tap the lower unit for the oil line. So, I said, well can you do it for me and they said No. Not very good Customer Service on their part. I don't know anything about drives, so I was hoping they could accomodate me. Not so.. I was talking to some girl that I don't think she new what she was talking about.

I think you misunderstood them or they gave you bad info. Their drive works just fine with a reservoir . I had their bravo on a 2003 Velocity w/reservoir without issue for 3 years and 14 days when I hit a rock and bent the prop shaft. Had I done that within the warranty period they would have replaced..... THe reason they don't/won't do anything outside of what is in the box is because they simply aren't set up to do so. They sell stock replacement parts ONLY. But I think you will find their lower will work in your case.

I also spoke with Diamond Performance. I think they said it will work but I need to see if the oil flows through the top into the bottom, then it would be fine. If it by passes the upper, then it will still work, but you will need to plug a hole, by tapping and putting in a plug or by using JB weld. Does that sound correct?

For a while there was a large group of guys from scream and fly and the microboat forum calling them begging them to make an Alpha SS clone ,, SEI firmly stated they have zero interest in making any performance versions of any of the Merc stuff..They dont want to deal with the hassles of gearheads overpowering their parts and then wanting it warrantied..

Good business plan. Let me rephrase "Smart" Business Plan.

If their product is better than Merc, why not sell Hi-Perf without warranty? Best of both worlds. I would certainly buy without warranty knowing it will last longer than Merc.