Does it matter were I put the pickup on the cav plate? I was going to put it about 4 or 5 inches from the end but thought I would ask the experts first. I have a Bravo XR with a Sportmaster lower. Any thoughts on this would be great.

The shower like I have comes with a template that tells you were to put it. If you mounted it in too far it might kink the hose or interfere with the trim rams and steering. Why do you want to mount it in farther?

On my drive, i guess you would say the cav plate, doesnt continue the full length of the drive. On my old boat they continued past the point were the trim rams are mounted and I bolted my pickup at the very end of the drive. These end before the trim rams and I was wondering if thats an okay place. I have a 36 Spectre and the drives dont trim very much so I dont think I will kink them. Does this make sense?

No
The distance won't change with trimming. As you can see in the pic above trimming won't affect the hose unless it hits something. Just remenber that the pickup has to be on the right side of a right hand drive and the left side of a left hand drive. At least that's what my IMCO directions said. I think that's so that the water coming off the prop will be pushed at the pick up. Also make sure you have clearance with the prop if you mount it forward.

I plumbed mine direct from the oil cooler end plate ( drilled, tapped and pipe fitting) due to switching to a blackhawk drive and used a nice thru hull fitting from the cooler to the transom and the transom to the drive. a 90 degree fitting pointing up from the back of the cooler cap solved the hose routing problem. This way, my drive is cooled all the time, even at idle after running hard.

Thanks for the input guys.

don't you think that at idle, the drive will be submerged? Sounds like pretty good cooling to me.

Actually, on my cat the whole top half of the drive is above water at idle.