At what point is a nosecone REALLY needed on a TRS in a heavy old Cig?

reason I ask is the set of drives I been running has them, my spares do not, I want to build a new RH lower this winter and wonder if I REALLY need the nosecone or not, hate to put it on if I don't need to, and possibly remove from the other drives I have. boat runs 73 mph at the moment.... the epoxy is chipping on the drives with nosecones also that's another reason I might remove them...

The trs drive is a unit of girth and bulk and drag. If i was to bet on it i would say at 73 there could be a advantage.
Might handle a little better without em though. Even slight drive mis alighnments with trs/cone combos add lots of drag.
I always thought the cones looked at home on those big trs drives, i would personally leave em just for that alone.

I guess my biggest concern is adding them to my other drives I don't want to if its not needed

Have you considered molding your own Tim?

Couple gallons of "bondo" and a spatula is all you need!

yes maybe I should lol

the truth is, no one knows until you try them without! what depth are the drives? Mercury did a lot of hydrodynamic testing and the shape is there for a reason. trs and bravo drives were designed to run deep in the water and the flow is better at all trim angles with the rounded front. the speedmaster style drives are a surfacing drive so at that height the pointed nose worked better. a lot of times people added nosecones because they looked cool or they "thought" it would run faster only to have it slow down. if you have a spare set that is stock and they are usable the best thing would be to bolt them on and try them to see what the boat does and then decide from there. every boat is different and what works on one does not always work on another.

true, I personally would like to remove nosecones from the drives that have them, one is broken and not gonna use the lower case housing again, so I hate to install a nosecone on a new case if not needed...

jesse morgan's top gun with 750's and TRS that he sold, he said that he picked up 3 mph from the nose cones alone. thats decent power on an old heavy cig. hope this helps.

funny part is I am seeing more speed and rpm with the drive with no cone... that's another reason I asked, might just have to play with it..

700's and 80 on Jesse's boat. I ran it many times. 75slip was fine, 78-82 ish slip went way up and kept climbing