Here's something you might like to know. For example, many Chicago boaters (I know/heard of) have taken their offshore engines to some very good drag/car type guys and only end up very dissappointed.....heck, they even have a hard time finding a legit marine engine shop that is supposed to KNOW what they're doing and are just as bad as the car guys when it comes to building offshore engines and some of these guys are pretty deceptive.

Talk to 10X (Frank)...he can tell you of many horror stories about unsuspecting guys like you who have taken their stuff to the wrong people.

Trade that Biotch in on a SKATER instead of makin it run:cool-smiley-011:

He could get there with a cam set up for wet exhaust, he will have to spin it around 5500. I would use ovals though, or a realy small square port like no bigger than 310. Use a tunnel ram with dual 600's. You would need a header and use a solid roller cam, but I think it would work.

I have an engine in the machine shop now. Maybe I will try it.

Truie!

[QUOTE=jeff1000man;2430650]He could get there with a cam set up for wet exhaust, he will have to spin it around 5500. I would use ovals though, or a realy small square port like no bigger than 310. Use a tunnel ram with dual 600's. You would need a header and use a solid roller cam, but I think it would work.


no access to the Swap Shop ????? and wtf is going on with that ???? you better sign up and be a OSO advertiser and Beanish will like you again :evilb::evilb::evilb:

I have though of duing that myself....With my cam a tunnel ram would work well......I am not a tuner one carb is enough for me.......

ok, so say that for whatever reason i scored a set of bigger motors in the 600 hp range.. What about drives now?? Arent bravo 1's rated to like 450 hp??

[QUOTE=RunninHotRacing158;2430668]I bet sales have slowed down because I was buying most of that cr ap anyway.

You know anyone that has a full 14-71 set up with the intercooler that I can bolt right on. Carbs arrestor, snout, pulleys, belts, EVERYTHING. A 10-71 would work also, but I would rather have the 14.

Buy an extra and run the pizz out of them. I've seen them take some pretty good abuse.

Just service them and keep your eyes out for a deal on XR's

Or carry a 5/8 wrench in your pocket. :evilb::party-smiley-004: JUST KIDDING

You don't need to sell your Bravo One drives. Either "Articfriends"/Smitty or "Mr. Gadgets"/Dick can take your existing Bravo One drive and make it into an XR drive by installing XR parts, blueprint the drive to the gearcase and even make it better/more reliable than getting a new XR out of the box. :)

:cool-smiley-027:
Really?? I didn't know that was a possibility - what kinda $$ are we comparing? I lucked out and bought mine with two Bravo's, but they will need freshening before I feel comfortable with their reliability.:cool-smiley-011:

Either PM "Articfriends" or "Mr. Gadgets" and they will give you the scoop!

I sure would like to know how he fits those oversize gears into that little bravo box. Every merc tech that I have ever talked to said that it has to be some drive in the "X" series to fit the XR gears into.

You sure you didn't have "X" drives when he got started.

Plese clarify, because that is an amazing and valuable technique that he has discovered.

I have 2 drives cluttering up the floor of my shop right now that I would gladly send over and have changed over so I could use them on other boats. I also have a couple friends. Probaly around 10 drives that we could send him.

Well Jeff, it's not written in stone, but right or wrong, not here to purposely steer you or anyone else in the wrong direction. Anyway, to answer your question, that is what I am quite sure both Articfriends and Mr. Gadgets told me, but hey, I've been wrong before and probably won't be the last time.

I also thought I mentioned to PM the men who do these drives...."Articfriends" and "Mr. Gadgets"....they are here on OSO much of the time---you can ask them for yourselves.

Nothing revolutionary about it,max machine worx started doing this the minute the xr drive came out. A xr upper gear is phisically no bigger in diameter than a std upper gear,just slightly thicker which you make up with by shimming with thinner shims/different thrust bearings. The shafts are all the same length,the lower gears are identical with the same forging markings on them except the splines are broached 1/16" bigger in dia.
The strongest bravo is a std case bravo outfitted with xr parts with a upgraded tower. Max worx bores out the stock std bravo tower that is a failure point,installs a full length tower that is bullet proof then installs all xr upper parts or their upgraded version of them with the exception of the dia of the retaining nut holding the upper pinion gear in,it is bigger on a xr and is a failure point. The upper is stronger then because it will not blow the retainer out the front (see attached pic of broken xr drive). As far as the lower,you can easily substitute the xr parts into it,the housing is a identiacl casting,they even sell a upgrade kit that has a xr prop shaft,carrier and gears for this very reason.
I have been running a drive as I just described for over 7 seasons with various hp levels ranging from 650 to over a 1000 in my 27 foot baja. I have broken parts and found the failure point of certain components and I have also experimented with various ways of trying to get the xr lower gears to last longer. I have found that by cryo finishing the lower gears and sending them thru a multistep surface conditioning process that in my application I have been able to quadruple the life of the gears. Last season I took it a step further,teamed up with Bob Madera of Marine Kinetics and with his technical support and industry connections tested some state of the art coatings and further finishing processes. We are still waiting for lab results on test gears that were ran for set intervals and we are also in the process/planning stages of having some short runs of aftermarket gears made as we have found the base material used in mercruiser bravo gears leans more towards mass production and less towards higher hp levels,Smitty
the pic is of a broken xr casing,a std bravo casing is thicker at that point.

Just tryin' to help Jeff. Now that you have your answer, when are you "gladly" going to be sending out those 10-12 drives you were talkin' about??? ;)

I'll send you my 2 for an experiment if it as cost effective as you say.

How much does it cost? t sounds like a pretty expensive and time consuming task. I was guessing that if it was as you said, that there was some extensive machining involved, because those parts don't fit in the stock hole.

I was not trying to come off sarcastic in the first comment, it;s just that sarcsm is what we get down here from the suppliers when I ask the question about upgrading the regular bravo 1

Jeff,
I am running a B1 with XR upgrade, that I had done years ago. I have about 300hrs on the drive at this point. I dont have big power, my 28' Check only runs 87.7mph best to date.
I install my own tower that is threaded 2" into the case. The drive can be built with your input shaft or a new one with Metric ujoints. Either way the gears fit with out machining. You could put XR gears in without the steel tower, but I wouldnt do it. I also use the XR ribbed top cap, because it has a steel tower in it. The cost of doing a B1 to XR upper does approach a point of dimished returns. The B1 case does have the thicker snout. But I have had one of the new style (hump back) with 1170hp and it was bumped up to 1400hp for a short period. It was only run about 15 hard passed before the end of the season. I tore it down and it looked very nice inside. The snout on the case isnt that much of an issue in my opinion. When the XR gears break a tooth, no matter what case it is in.. it can be fatal to the case, even if the snout doesnt come off. On the other hand I have seen an XR case with the thin snout survive when a tooth broke off and the boat was run 8miles back to the launch. Case was ok..
I dont like to use very old cases for upgrade to the steel tower. The rest of the case has weak points in it that I would rather see a newer case that has thicker bearing race seats.. etc. There are other wear points in the case that if worn.. will be rejected. You want the best if you are adding power, so no sense starting with a case that is worn too much!
If you like, pm me and I can work up a quote for you. And you can compare the differences.. Your email address, so I can email the estimate..

Hope this helps
Dick

PM sent. Do you work with Artic friends? Bb madro highly recomends the guy. I talked t him earlier today.

No problem Jeff. Both guys are highly qualified. I only live about 20 miles from Mr. Gadgets (he built my drives). Articfriends is an excellent "test bed" for the Bravo One drive! He goes out and personally tests (beats the crap out of them) these drives with 1000+hp over and over and then reports his findings right here on OSO.

Jeff1000,just to clarify things,although I do work on drives and can and will install mercruiser gears that I have done surface treatments to for customers and I do build lowers,I'm not in the drive building business like Max Machine Worx or Dick Tryce. They can take your core upper housing then bore it out for a steel tower (I don't have that capability) then rebuild it with new internal xr style parts. Dick Tryce has his own steel tower and blend of Merc & Imco parts that seem to be working for his customers. In the case of the Max Machine Worx,they use Merc gears but upgrade the bearings to stronger ones,billet upper shaft,vert shaft and prop shaft. They also use a 1" thick top cap thats billet aluminum,it locates the upper gear very accurately which keeps it from moving around. They have billet yokes,seal retainers,prop carriers and a slew of other parts.As they have found a failure point they have addressed it with a better part. In a fairly light boat the stuff can live with upwards of 1000 hp BUT the cost of these upgrades exceed the cost of a brand new xr drive even with you providing a upper and lower casing that are intact so unless your at a extreme power level its not a cost effective solution. This is what I run on my boat and I have had fairly good life from there parts combination with the exception of lower gears. Thats where I have taken it a step further with the gear treatments. The treated gears have a considerably longer service life if installed properly and broken in with decent run-in time. In the near future Bob Madera and myself hope to have a set of billet lower gears on the market to fill the void of people running big power who are un-able to make stock gears live a reasonable amount of time,Smitty

Thanks for the response. I have found what you are talking about to be true. We havn't gotten that crazy on power here yet, to need the extreme drive. I was thinking these guys had come across a cheaper way to build an XR, and that was what I thought I was reading.

Good luck in your quest for the triple digits. Bob tells me good things about your experiments. :D