Offshoreonly.com - Converting another boater into an Arneson Believer

Offshoreonly.com (https://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/)

- General Boating Discussion (https://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/general-boating-discussion-51/)

- - Converting another boater into an Arneson Believer (https://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/general-boating-discussion/333140-converting-another-boater-into-arneson-believer.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tibbstoy2 (Post 4385673)

Nice, Brian! For me the SCX drives turned outward was pretty much on rails, inward was a bit loose, but there was porpoising in the 3000-3400 range with both directions of rotation. Just like bravo's the boat seemed very stern-heavy in waves. I had to run a lot of tab in rough water - killing even more speed.

The Arneson drives have no porpoising whatsoever (I've only run the boat with props turned inward), and I rarely use tabs except for slight adjustments in waves. I was also surprised at how well the boat handles and steers on plane, no difference from Bravo's.

Great upgrade with great results!

Do you care to mention the cost of the ASD upgrade? Seems it never gets mentioned even when Rik gets asked directly.

Not to mention all the hardware looks bad ass back there! :D :cool:

The bravo conversion makes it stupid simple.......no moving of the engines since the standoff box has room inside it for the velvet drive trans.....and the stand off box has the bravo bolt pattern so no cutting of the transom....its basically labor for the swap once you have the parts.....this is assuming the modify bug doesn't bite you and you start changing things like color matching the hardware or chroming things :D

Congrats on a great upgrade!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wally (Post 4385697)

The conversion, while pretty straightforward, is honestly not quite that easy.

The hole pattern is different - the Arneson Extension box could eat my old IMCO extension boxes, so the new hole pattern is much bigger (a good thing when you see the size of the hardware... EVERYTHING is overbuilt - which is fantastic). The actual cutout inside the extension box does get a bit bigger too since the BAM transmission doesn't quite fit in the Bravo hole. I also had to do some modifying to the extension box and inner bracket due to stringer interference issues that were unavoidable.

The other note is that while the engines didn't move forward, the angle of the engines typically have to change for most transom angles - this means modifying the motor mounts and tailpipes.

All that being said, these changes are needed to optimize for the Arneson design. The end result is worth these changes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 302Sport (Post 4385704)

That is not true, almost every single person I have talked to that did the bravo conversion had to move the engines down in the boat, and/or fill the notch in the transom. Moving the engines down also means that new tailpipes have to be made or the existing holes have to be filled and moved.

The angle change was a much bigger concern than the amount I needed to drop the engines. My solution was to change the angles of the tailpipes. I have CMI double wall tails with miter angles... so it wasn't as easy as a single wall, but there was no need to buy new tails. The angle the engine changes is also usually up in the front, down in the back - 3 degrees in my case. Even though I have large offshore oil pans, I didn't need to drop the engines more than 1" and I had the room to do it.

Because of this angle and where the headers are located geometrically relative to the transom, if you actually do need to cut on the tail pipes, they end up being shorter to accomplish the same goal - so buying new is not necessary. A lot of guys send them out to Hardin or Stainless Marine to cut and re-weld if necessary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 302Sport (Post 4385693)

I think everybody pretty much knows the cost of the cost of the arnesons themselves, but how much did it cost to move the engines, re-rig the boat, etc??????

Basically starting with the cost to remove your SCX's, to the last nut going on to tighten your new props onto the arnesons????? What was the all in cost with labor, parts, props, etc...

I can't really answer what the cost to re-rig is since I did it all myself. There is certainly a significant amount of work in making this change - and I'd be happy to walk you through what it took if that helped. (PM me your info, I can talk you through it).