Bravo 1 weak link
 

If you overpower a bravo 1, what typically fails ? And, is that upper, or lower failure ?
Thanks,
Dale

Clutch shaft breaks, upper gears break, lower gears fail, prop shaft twists, just to name a few. Pretty much in that order from what i have seen

Upper gears from my experience.

It's the loose nut behind the throttles that focks up the Bravo Drives.

A loose nut literally took out my second Bravo XR upper. On the non swept back uppers the input shaft gear nut backs off unless it has been loc-tited and peened in place! Mine did not have that update done. The nut back off, the gears broke and the case broke in half.

The set screw in my internal shift linkage backed out years ago; turned everything inside the drive to the consistency of chunky apple sauce, per my mechanic.
Moral: If it's not a loose nut, you will still get screwed anyhow.

Its just a rolling chitshow that is really only truly reliable up to 500 HP. All American Drive, Bravo Shop and several other tweaked and stiffened everything but you are still putting lipstick on a pig. If its not the gears then (in no particular order) the shafts, then clutches, then tower, then bearings, then once you think you got the upper fairly rigid the lower gears go. "Artic" had 900 HP or something behind a Baja and had everything good in the upper then he started blowing out lower gears, which to me was completely insane because Ive completely lost about every component in the upper at one time or another.

And yes, before someone says I routinely run 800 HP thru mine, yeah but at what cost? We could all have bought 2 or 3 IMCO SCX's by now.

Fun times....

Must be Irish.

Padraig

Could not have said it better myself. I've been down this same road and wished someone would've told me to bite the bullet and get the SCX right outta the gate.

So what's the difference between a B1 & BXR ? ...when you see them rigged to a 650 hp. or more Cigarette's or comparable HI Perf. boats ......high 6 figure boats with Brvo drives...why??