Outdrives
 

:hothead: What drive will hold up to 700 plus horsepower with a mild hole shot, that doesn't cost 30,000 plus? Tired of babying my toy. It's easy to make power but the marine industry seems a little behind in technology compared to cost. Maybe, sell the boat and but outboard engines.

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Konrad

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konrad

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I have gotten reasonable use out of max machine worx drives

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Does anyone make upgraded gears? It seems all the aftermarket companies are using the XR gearset's

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Panther,all the upgraded bravo's are still using xr gears,other than some issues with some soft pinion gears at first ,the xr upper gears (if supported right with good bearings etc) seem to outlast other parts exploding/breaking in outdrive,Smitty

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How hard can you launch the boat from a stand still? And what if you boost the power up to 1,000 horses?

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Also is it a shiftable drive or does it require a transmission. I do not have enough engine bay to move the motor forward.

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What do you have there now?

The Konrads are good for 700hp.
They make a standoff box to house the tranny, mounts right where a bravo was.
Cost of the whole package is about $13,000.

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Check with Total Marine & Performance on their upgraded Bravo's. I ran 1989 model Bravo 1 behind 600 HP blown 468's for 10 years. NO hole shots ever.

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the imco platinum extreme is a nice piece. i have a few customer's that beat fire out of their boat's and they seam to be holding up.

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I holeshot my boat occasionaly,catch air and let it hang on msd at 6000 once in a while,turning 30 pitch prop,outdrive breaks something about every 2 years/125 hours (max machine worx). Stock bravo lasted 1 season with blown 502/26 pitch,went to 28 pitch,upped boost 2 psi,drive broke 5 minutes out,Smitty

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:cool:

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:cool: :cool:

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Arneson conversions that bolt onto where the bravo was......... :D

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Weismann is the way to go. Efficient and durable...

Andreas

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Bmax :cool:

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KONRAD 540'S will handle that power no problem. They are extremely overbuilt with huge bearings, shafts, gears and thick walled cases to control distortion. I've been running the Konrad 540's behind 700hp blower motors all season, 110 hrs of hard running. You don't have to baby them, just slam the throttles and treat it like a ski boat! :D

www.konradmarine.com

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Hey Brian , Where is the race engine hatch? Tom

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ADVICE:

1. It is not a drag racer on a 1/4 mile strip. :rolleyes:

2. It is not a plane. Don't fly it. Keep the drives WET! :chimp:

3. Having props designed to "SLIP" will extend the life of your drives :bunny: tremendously.

4. 4 and 5 blasdes hook up too fast and are hard on the pinions etc. :D

Treating your equipment with respect will do 4 things:

1. Save you a lot of $$$$

2. You and your passangers will finsih the passage with a pleasurable and memorable experience.

3. No downtime

4. Your butt will not be hanging out of the hatch while wrenching on your stuff.

Chit happens and parts get tired fast enough without encouragment. Everything will break in time and faster if you pound it.

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Hey Tom,

Still in the garage... winter project for this winter. I'll need to re-do my tonneau cover, so have been putting the job off. Looking forward to having more advertising space for Konrad, and others.

Cheers,
Brian

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In your opinion, what are the best upgrades for the dollar?

RIght now I am upgrading my new XR's with;

1) deburring and cryogenically treating all the shafts and gears.

2)Upgrading the bearings that need caged bearings.

3)And adding a Max Billet cap.

I know there is lots more to do but where does it become cost ineffective? as you stated, they will break eventually.

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The Konrads are tough.

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That sounds like a good plan,i would also add the max worx upper to lower vert shaft coupler,the other big mod is their power towers in the uppers,i'm not sure if anyones breaking the upgraded xr towers that replaced the failure prone bravo aluminum towers,Smitty

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What are your feelings on the u-joints?

One sick Gladiator (Rick) had one let go with 40 hours on it.

Is this a common failure?

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Depends how much you fly with it.

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With ITS there is a lot of potential damage possible. Would you upgrade Thinking of an insurance policy so to speak?

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After 50 hours of time on my XR's I had them dis-assembled by "Mr.Gadgets" and we found that the pinion gears were beginning to go away and needed replacement. We also found a u-joint going away as well. Still another thing we found was a missing fiber washer/shim that goes in between the gimble ring and bellows housing. We think the fiber washer/shim was overlooked by the Merc factory and never installed----it's a VERY easy thing to miss! I believe this is the reason why I had a vibration in the drives while attempting to plane off and while coming off plane. We think it was a sort of vilolent "fish tailing" motion. The props were in excellent shape---lab finished, etc. Once on plane everything felt smooth and no vibration that I could feel.

THE DOMINO EFFECT---We also believe that the drive with the missing fiber washer/shim also caused one of the female splines (where the outdrive shaft goes into) within the Stellings extension boxes to wear pre-maturely and also needed replacement. The splines on the male part (drive shaft) looked fine. The vibration caused the Simrek drive shower to crack and break off on that particular drive as well. It was telling me something, but I couldn't figure out what it was until I spoke with the owner of Simrek. He is an engineer and was very helpful---I think his name is Paul. He told me his drive showers are like tuning forks---that if they crack or break then something is going on with the drives, i.e. mis-alignment, not towed in correctly, etc, etc.

Through it all, I believe the external steering I had with the super heavy duty double wing plates kept things from going into a disaster both safety wise, and parts.

I am still learning with all this, but I believe I am a good student and I am hopefully becoming wiser as time goes on with this stuff. The part I don't enjoy is finding out the hard way. :(

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I have 2 outdrives for my single engine boat,a max machine upgraded stock bravo and a max maxhine upgraded xr,i swap them out as parts fail or maintenance is needed. One has stock bravo ujoints and cardigan joint(i think thats what you call it),the other has xr joints and cardigan joint,both have billet input yokes. When i had about 150 hours on stock bravo joints i started getting a vibration and thought i had a ujoint going bad,i pulled drive off and noticed some (.020-040) play in ujoints up and down in yokes and center piece. I changed the ujoints and it was the same still,i carefully used a ujoint press and squeezd the yokes tighter to the snap rings on ujoints,the max billet yoke was still tight though,and all the vibration was gone. My boat doesn't really wind out and get the last 8 mph out of it unless you trim it to the max which is probably what spread the yokes apart,the xr joint assembly has never done this,i'm running a blown 540 turning a 30 pitch prop,hasn't ever outright broke the joints or center piece,i think you'lll be okay,just check for play up and down in joints when you do your annual inspection of coupler and outdrive,Smitty

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Hey 2112
what up
The U joint that let go was on the froward motor But the damage to that U joint could been done by one or all of us. all of us were hard on this set up
1)CIg running the boat to see how it runs( 1-2 hrs)
2) Lip Ship running the sh#t out of it to see how it runs (112 mph) (8 -10 hrs)
3) Hot Boat running the sh#t out of it (109.9 mph) ( 2-3 hrs)
4) Then you got me running it real slow nothing less then (100 mph) 25 - 30 hrs
when the u joint let go. I had drives at 3 1/2 - 4 at WFO


Rick OSG

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If anyone needs a stock, standard Bravo One, brand new, in the box...I have one available for $2,900.00 plus shipping. It is a 1.5:1 ratio & comes with a Mercruiser Factory One Year Warranty. It's listed in the swap section. Give me a E-mail at [email protected] Thanks, Ed

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You never mentioned what type and size or vintage boat you have.

I like the idea of surface drives, but I do not know what type of boat you have.

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I too have been considering using a Konrad drive on a new boat that I am setting up. 37' cat with 1k h.p. motors. What are your opinions on this setup? What are the pros, cons, etc... of the Konrad drive? I am unfamiliar with them with the exception of information picked up here and there. I would love to go with a #6, but $ is limited on this project. Will a Konrad be sufficient? How much H.P. do they eat? Any special considerations that I need to be aware of prior to making my decision?

Thanks,
BB572

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Hey Rick

Our boats Are so similar, what ever experience you have, I take notice. I just like to address weak links that are known if I can.:D

Did you have the balance of the driveshaft on the foward motor checked BTW? Mine doesn't look like they took more than two minutes to balance it (welded a crappy washer to the side). Again, Looking out for weak links. :rolleyes

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haven't seen anyone recomend speedmaster #3a's. you can get a used pair for reasonable money and they will handle gobs of power for a whole lot less than #six's. a used pair of 3a's is probably less than a new pair of konrads and will handle 900 hp no sweat... just my .02 i think dollar marine has a pair for sale, so does tommy at chief engines...

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2112
on problem You will hear a lot of pros & cons about big power & xr drive
Did you put your big motors in yet ?
Your boat should run real strong. let me know what you do to your drives & how they work. You will get more hours then got because you will be the one running your boat.

Rick OSG

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Rick;

I am nearing the top of the list at Stellings on the headers. Currently fabbing/rigging setup in the engine bay. Goal is to have it fully functional by early spring.