Really? I thought #5s were shorter and were all around a different drive than a #4. Isn't a #5 a surface drive, and a #4 is similar to a big shaft #3?

Interesting reading this thread. There are always different variables that may or may not come into question. Some spoke about speed. etc. Others about what holds behind what power. And it all needs to be taken on a boat by boat case along with how you intend to use it and what your goals are. I know a guy that bought a Baja of all things that had blower motors and 5's on it. He had no idea what he bought and first time in the water, when he had to floor the **** out of it to even attempt to get the boat to plane, He was like " I'm out " sold it the next week. Regardless, chris21hope, I just wanted to throw out there and see what your plans were. I had much experience in a 33' Scarab with High Horsepower Procharged engines ( another thing most here will say is Junk, cause they don't know or just don't care to understand ) and ran that boat a good bit over 100mph , before xr style gears were even out. Using at one time Spiral Bevel 1.36 tops with IMCO shortie 15-17 geared bottoms creating like a 1.21:1 ratio or something. Using bravo Four bladed wheels most the time. I ran this boat constantly at the shootout, and in local poker runs along some cigarette friends etc. the thing was awesome. Did it never break. no. but rarely and it was usually a bearing issue in the top, Plus it ate up a lot of " fast " boats. I loved it and miss it. The owner I did the work for passed away and the boat went through several owners, and repos after that. It is now in Sweden. So there certainly is a place for a bravo boat, and with a couple of mild upgrades readily available for them now, at least on that hull, I can't imagine using anything else. good luck with your new motors, Should be Awesome. Those are one of the few hulls I see that always seem to bring good money yet when for sale.

4 and 5 side by side are the same except for the prop shaft. Externally that is.
3 and 4 same internals pretty much as far as bearings and gears. 4 being a shorter version of a 3, 5 shorter version of a 3a

Uhhhh....how many suppliers are there for bravo gears?.......just ONE!

Can I hit like to the 10th power on that one^^^^

There's a few more parts that are stronger in the 5s

With your skill you could easily rig the boat economically

Arneson
5's
4's
or even wet sump 6s

I would steer clear of the Konrad's, not really that strong, efficient or fast. Not a horrible drive i just have a feeling you could find something stronger, faster, and more badazz for the money!

Most of the parts for trs drives are still readily available from mercury. The only parts that I have not been able to purchase from mercury are a couple of the orings. The weak link on a trs is in the right hand lower. The driven gear is supported by the bearing carrier. Under big power the carrier flexes and causes misalignment of the gears which eventually fail. If someone were to design a heavy duty bearing carrier the trs would be much more reliable. The Trans is just a borg warner 7th unless you have the merc Trans. Plenty of reputable companies to be a up the 7th. If you have the merc Trans then I would replace it when upgrading your engines. The 3 is good for about 750hp reliably. The 3a is a heavier duty version of the 3. The 4 is similar to the 3a except that it is shorter. The 5 is much stronger than either the 3a or the 4. Mercury racing brought it to market to compete against the keikhafer #6 drive. They quickly realized that the #6 was far superior and soon purchased keikhafer aeromarine in order to aquire the #6 ssm. I personally would have a trs or any ssm over a bravo. If I was to rig a boat from scratch it would have an arne son for sure

Let me preface this by saying im am no means an expert on any of this and this is just my $.02. Because I have had SSM II's on my boat, I had to do a lot of digging into the history,

strengths and weakness of it, TRS drives, SSM 3s, SSM 3A's, Kamma's and Bravo's and even Alpha's (Alpha's because that is what is on my Formula 242)

1st there are two main categories of drives, Those with transmissions (TRS, SSM's, NXT's Arnesons and Kamma's) and those with out (Bravos and Alpha's). And again I say my

experience is limited to TRS, and Alpha's. The 1st thing I know about TRS drives is the coupler. The TRS drive has a spring dampened coupler similar to a clutch. The Alpha (and Bravo)

both use a rubber coupler. Then there is the transmission. When the trans applies forward gear, it moves the forward piston and applies a series of clutches. This whole action is very soft

in comparison to an Alpha which clunks when the dogs engage and a bravo when the cone clutch friction surfaces engage. I would rather have a transmission with all the surface area of 7

clutch discs than that of a bravo with its cone clutch. This is why people prefer the soft shifting of the transmission to the harshness of the shifted drives. Onto the drives. The TRS and

Bravo both have helical upper gear sets. The SSM 3, 4, 5 and 6 have spur upper gears. All the lower gears are spur gears (except the Alpha which is a spur gear). The advantage over a

bravo is in the transmission. As far as TRS parts being hard to find, maybe if you want to go to your local marina, that may be true, but still finding parts is not impossible. Now as far as

bravo boat being better than a SSM 3 boat, well all I can say to people who believe this is[ATTACH=CONFIG]535153[/ATTACH].

From what I remember a SSM 3 is rated to 750 hp. A Bravo 1 is only 500 hp. A XR sportmaster is good for 600 hp. So anybody who claims that a bravo is better than a SSM 3, 4, 5, 6

must be listening to what their marine mechanic says and the same mechanic believes that those drives must be inferior because they don't make them anymore and he has never seen

one. As far as the rest here is my ranking.

1 M8
2 SSM 6 dry sump
3 SSM 6 wet sump
4 Arneson
5 Kamma
6 SSM 4/5
7 SSM 3A
8 Bravo XR sport master
9 SSM 3
10 TRS/ SSM II
10 Bravo 1
11 Alpha

properly setup gears don't wear. They ideally have zero relative velocity between them, like a tire that never gets spun. Now the laffy taffy case theyre in...that's where the issue lies. IMO

And this may be why there are so many misinformed people out there.