dead duck: that is a seller with the fairing! shouldn't have a problem moving her.

Thanks to everybody who replied. I sold my 26' Wellcraft Nova 2 this spring in order to move up so I'm only considering 311's at this point. I looked at about 15 different boats, made my short list, and now I'm making offers on the ones that looked good. Won't be long before somebody will take my money!

DG, that REALLY came out nice.

Are nose cones worth the effort on a 311 with 365 HP 454's and Bravos? This is the first boat I've come across with the cones and I'm wondering how hard it would be to remove them.

Depends on how they were put on. Sometimes they are epoxied on, sometimes welded. Sometimes there's some damage behind them too from a previous incident before the cone went on. So it's tough to say exactly what you'd be looking at.

I run nose cones on my 311, and they help quite a bit, so why not just leave them on? I am running more power than the boat you are looking at though anyways, so it's tough to tell if they would make a difference.

The easiest safe way would be to pick up a used spare set of bravo lowers at some point. If you have trouble with the nose coses, just swap them. Then you could take the cones off the lowers safely and have the time to do it right, and either keep them as spare lowers (not a bad idea anyways) or sell them to get your money back.

Wantsa311-

I wouldn't worry about the nose cones. I have nose cones on mine with stock power and have not had problems with them. I also don't think that they help you untill you are over 80mph. Just think, if you ever upgraded the power in the boat the cones would all ready be there. But of course this is just my opinon.

I've got mixed feelings about cones on low-x boats.

Mainly that they don't really do much of anything good or bad either way.
If it's got em, don't try to tear them off.
If it ain't got em, don't be looking to add them.

don,t know why nobody talks about the 303. i drove a 311 with 330hp. motors and i thought it was a slug! i have had my 303 in some pretty rough stuf on the upper bay and thought it performed beautifully! Grant it that my boat has 365's and stainless marine exaust.

First time you're running alongside a 311 SR1 in rough water, you'll see the difference. No matter how good your 303 runs in the rough, that 311 is going to walk away from you quite easily....not meaning to offend your 303, it's just the way it is.

The 311's are not speed freaks, but in rough water they just might be the best older 31 ft. boat out there.

Another reason you don't hear as much about the 303 is, I don't think they made nearly as many of them. I think the 311 may be the best selling performance boat Formula ever made.