speedchangesyou

I just purchased a 1999 35 lightning with hp500's / 250 B&M blowers around 4lbs boost making around 600+hp, the prior owner has been running the boat pretty reliably with bravo 1 outdrives but taking it easy on it also. It's turning 31 4 blades. Will I have a piece of mind doing the same with maybe an occasional sticks to the wall and pulling back with air. Man I hate to think I need to go to XR drives. If so, is there anyone who take trade in's for my bravo 1's. They are absolutely spotless in condition and serviced religiously. thanks Guys

35 fountain

If your boat came with the HP500s then it probably has the HP gimble assemby and HP drives. You can spot the assembly by the stainless steel swivel pins on the side of the gimble rings and the HP drives have 1.25 inch diamenter drive shaft. This will hold up better than a stock bravo 1 setup that the stock 502 came with but still it was not set up to handle 650 horsepower and sooner rather than later you are going to break them.

BAJA WILL

You should be OK, as long as you are easy on them. Most of the HP ratings are for single application, on a twin application the load on the drives is much less.

speedchangesyou

Thanks for the imput guys, but if I do upgrade the stock Bravos were do you recommend getting them from I live in Pennsylvania. Thanks Again!!!!

tim brown

what year did they start using the hp ginble and xr drives . Tim

bob_t

HP gimbles started in 1996. XR drives were not installed on boats with HP500's. Some late 2002/early 2003 boats with 500EFI's may have left the Fountain factory with XR's. The XR's were standard on the 575SCi boats and then with the 525EFI boats. Many of the 500EFI boats had XZ Bravo 1 drives. Early 35 twin step 35's broke std B1 drives rather quickly even with 500EFI's. When Fountain started raising the X dim, they had trouble with standard water pickups on the B1 drives - they sucked air. Mercury came out with LWP B1 drives, but those had water pressure issues - to much water pressure at high speed. Later they came out with DWP drives and that took care of much of the pressure problems. Several of the early standard water pickup drives had the top couple of holes plugged and new ones machined in lower in the gear case because of the higher X dim's.