Whats the real scoop on all the "problems" we have been hearing about with these drives ?

Ive done a lot of research on this with Merc and some builders that I know personally and the only challange I know of is with Fountains and some Outerlimits that the X-dimension is so high that the NXT-1 drive runs a little short on rudder/skeg length and thats when they go to the 6 drive married to the NXT-1 gimbal/ trans set-up, they dont use the 6 drive trans for these applications, there has been only 1 drive issue to date that I'm aware of and that was a bearing failure, there were trans issues at first but that was taken care of early on, I'm told by my builder that Merc is coming out with a longer skeg for the drive for certain applications .I hope this info is correct,,,my cat is getting laid up in 2 weeks

Correctamundo.........and Mercury as always is being EXTREMELY proactrive in working with Outerlimits and Fountain to resolve any issue there may be.

They have also bolted some #6's to the NXT gimbals.

The 700 pkg works fantastic on the Donzi ZR's. I was on a 700 boat in November through the FL Keys and it handled like a dream.

I was also informed from a Merc rep that the HP is more like 760+ which makes sense on the speed numbers Im getting on some west-coast boats 137mph in a "Lake Boat" is ok with me,,125 in a 36 Nortech, the 662's in the Nortech at Miami is in the 112 range

Why not just go with Konrad drives? They have a tremedous proven track record.

resale, its what the market percieves as better. Merc motor, Merc drive..

Once you go BLACK you never want to go back

In talking with the mechanics @ Typhoon, I was told that there was a water pick-up issue with some boats high x-dimension and they had to add a low water pick-up. Other than that it appears to be a bullet proof package.

Can't the manufacturers drop the X dimension for these applications?

they sure can but between fountain and outerlimits, every mph counts...

BTW, this drive fails to excite me. same old stuff, the idea behind it is 50+ years old. It still has all the disadvantages of the #6 without some of the advantages of a cone clutch drive. It doesn't push the envelope in any way...