If memory serves, there was a guy on here that bought a 272 new back in the late 80's rigged with SBC 320 EFI's and Alpha SS. I think he was right at 70 or a little above with the top speed on it.

Yep, that is Sprink. He may chime in here, seemed like a really hot setup. And 320 HP now days out of a small block is not difficult to do! With a 350 and vortec heads, a bit of cam and you are there. That is the easy part, it is two drives that is the difficult part. Seems like it would be easier to just raise the cutouts 2" with how rare alphas SS' are. But then you get the nose cone issues....

Brian

Read that years ago, that is when I figured I would either change to Bravos and go shorties, Recut the transom and raise motors, or hang my head and realize my bucket will never be a speed demon and just enjoy it for what it is. A wave crusher that will break 60.

No way was I going to spend about $10k or more on custom shorty alpha drives on an old cheap boat. I figured Alpha SS would set me back $5k to $6k with props and no spare. For about $300 to $500 I can get spare used drives all day long and just have fun. Between my Formula and my Hydrodyne, I have 5 or 6 complete drives right now, should last awhile.

Still, that is a pretty good article. I was mainly interested it till they pulled the stock motor with the Vortec heads. After that, it got expensive....

I had a '86 272 LS with 320 EFI's and Alpha SS drives. Trimmed to the max...light load and 23" cleavers it ran about 75 at 6000 RPM. The boat would run over 70 with 2 aboard and full fuel tank.

If I were doing something to a 272 in the drive department it would be a conversion to Bravo.They're everywhere, parts are plentiful and are much more hydro dynamically friendly up to 100 than any thing else. They are much stronger and can handle 500 horsepower and nearly as much torque set up as twins on boats under 30'/7000#. Unless you put serious blowers on a pair of LS motors a standard Bravo I should handle anything you throw at it in a relatively light boat.

That was a really cool read. Would love to have a couple of cut down drives like that.

23" pitch at 6000 rpm through 1.5 drives and 75 mph gives a 14% slip. Sounds right. That is spinning them up there! If I ever replace my transom, they are being cut higher for that reason. As you have shown, 400 HP 350's are not out of line. Hard to image an old 272 going over 70 with reasonable small blocks. Would be fun, but I still just want to run mine and go boating with the family.

Back in 1987 a buddy of mine bought a Formula 272 brand new, It had Mercruiser Hi Performance 320EFI's with Alpha SS drives from the factory. It ran extremely well for back in the day. If I remember correctly, the speedo always read 74 with a light load. As mentioned above, the SS drive is a unique beast, the upper is shorter, lower is very similar to the outboard CLE lower.