I'm tired of busting drives! So far this year I have gone through a new Imco SC and an upgraded Bravo I. To give you a little background I have a 28ft Commander Cat with a single engine. The motor is a 540ci blower motor that produces somewhere in the neighborhood of 850-900hp (with same torque). I grenaded the SC, and have also had problem with the shifting on the Bravo's. So needless to say I've gotten to the point where I am feed up with spending money on drives and parts.

I am starting to hear good things about the Konrad 540. I like the fact that they have a tranny. Has anyone out there run one. Anyone have cold hard facts about their durability. Can they hold up in a single engine cat that weighs approx 4500lbs? Can they take pounding torque of a blower motor?

dude 900hp througha bravo on a 4500lbs boat and you;re wondering why your puking drives? i got three letters for you:

SSM

Get in touch with Biggus on the board. He is running them with blower motors on his Top Gun and could not be happier.

Jon

Look in last month's Hot Boat, they have a story on the Konrads' in there, built as a replacement for the TRS drives and have other models that have been used by coat Guard/Navy over last 10 yrs..

Look no further. You CAN'T brake this thing. With that much HP you might want to run the ASD8. I was just in Howards shop today and talked with them for some time about the conversion.


http://www.arneson-industries.com/br...conversion.htm

Guy's

Thanks for all the info. Anyone else have any input feel free to add your two cents. I believe that the Konrad is the drive for me. A SSM is out of my price range (glassing, props, etc) and unfortunately the Arneson set-up does not work on my hull configuration (have a friend with 25 Talon, same bottom, who is running an Arneson [allegedly set-up by Howard himself] and he is not seeing the speeds he expected).


Thanks again for the info and Audiofn I will definitely look up Biggus.

Matt

I've got a bit over 80 hrs on my Konrads and could not be happier with them. They are designed for military use under war conditions. Drive failure is not an option when the US Navy is your biggest customer.

I just changed the drive oil and the magnets were clean. not even a bit of fuzz!

Kurt.

www.konradmarine.com

Family and Performance Boating also has a great article.
For the Bravo conversion you need a trany. Konrad makes a drive extension box that houses the trany if you don't want to move your engine forward. You get about 8" of setbackand it bolts right to the bravo holes. No transome work.

Bmax

I'm sorry, but you should have stepped up to the speedmaster. It always amazes me that somebody won't spend the coin for the drive, but will gripe when they frag a bravo. The Bmax would be an option, but you will go slower. I also don't like putting these designer drives on a stock gimble. You are begging for a broken ring. Hopefully, you'll catch the crack before it becomes catastrophic. In all honesty, I'd back down the boost. Then you can decide if you want to buy a new boat or keep and eye out for a used speedmaster, trans & gimble package.