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Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange quatro (Post 4061205)

I was going to do just that but the drives are the expensive part of that equation. Some people tell me that the XR drives can handle it but i'd have to really baby it. I don't beat my boat but if you run in some snotty stuff, sometimes the drives pop out and growl no mater how easy you go. You run the bay , you know what I mean. Got any ideas? Converting to 6's would really cost and i don't think i would ever recover that money in the resale or even a fraction of that cost. Someone once told me if you want to make your boat faster, go buy a faster boat.

In the spring of 2006 I made the switch from Bravo's (IMCO Extreme SC's), after blowing up several of them, over to BMax HT drives. At that time I was running 700hp blower motors. One year later I changed the cam's and the engines dynoed at 838HP. I ran the boat from 2007 - 2011 like that and then updgraded from Merlin Cylinder Heads to AFR 357cnc heads. I didn't dyno the engines but after the upgrade I picked up an additional 300 rpms. Having said that, I estimate the engines are now making at minimum 875HP. All the while running BMax HT drives. This winter I'm refreshing the drives for the first time and they have roughly 300 hours on them.

Given my own history, my suggestion would be a set of BMax drives if you ever upgrade power. To re-rig your boat for SSM's would cost a Brinks truck full of cash.

Also, the bay is much calmer than the water I'm used to. When it gets choppy it's easy to "miss" but it's much calmer than what I'm used to. I used to live on the Jersey shore and ran this boat for 6 years there before moving to MD and running here for the past 3 seasons.

According to Whipple, 780 hp. Three seasons and no issues. Until the Buffalo Poker Run this past summer, where I ran a little too hard in some rough water on Lake Erie. I started getting a banging sound a few weeks later. Turns out I broke a tooth off of a lower unit.

Yes, they will eventually go. Even with stock 525's in your boat or mine. The question is how long..

Panther, what did the BMAX drives cost? I think Imco's are around $30k. you can spend that money up front or you can resign yourself to a rebuild every few years. That's what I chose. I figure the payback on the rebuilds vs. Imco's is far enough in the future that it was not worth laying out the cash. Plus, Bravos are a bit faster.

I paid far less than $30k. It was also 2006. I sold the Imco Extreme SC's for $10k and a spare/rebuilt Upper for $2,500 to offset my cost.

However, the summer of 2005 I spent over $10k in blown Imco drives. It was not fun. I didn't put more than 20hrs on them.