..

He had ITS, which incorporates your hydraulic steering as well as sets the drives back 7 inches. I had the same set up, ITS and sportmaster lowers. Mine had twin 600s though. I suspect having 3 drives helps relieve some of the stress on each drive, so you are likely better off with the triples than twins as far as the drives go. The F4 is lighter than the NorTech. Mine was the first one built, and when they delivered it I believe it was just shy of 12K lbs. Not sure that was dry weight though, I believe that was with batteries etc, and probably a little fuel.

I'm on my second 43. Both had twin motor setup. These are big boats and I have to agree that they will stress the XR's. I also had a 35 Fountain with 525's and XR's, replaced or fixed 4 drives in 3 years of use. One of the failed drives was my fault and the stress on these was mostly caused by the high X dimension and running 6 blade Hering's which are very aggressive.

My current 43 has 1025's with #6's and is for sale if you have any interest.

ZRX, I'd be very interested in your Nor-Tech if I had more money. Sounds like a great set up. I may know someone interested in exactly what you're selling, though. Where is it posted?

It's on www.pier57.com
The boat is very nice and the colors are amazing, pictures don't do it justice!

Standoff boxes. Mostly you'll just hear people say something along the lines of "I ran bravos on boxes".

You really have two kinds of stand off boxes.

1) The Mercury ITS system which was designed to incorporate Hydraulic Steering directly into the (Mercury) drive system. ITS is about 7" of setback.
+integrated system, one vendor, cleaner transom
-not as strong, lots of corrosion problems as there is a ton of metal and components under the cover that really don't get the flushing and maintenance they need
(Without seeing the boat, I agree with what's been said and bet that's what on the Nor-Tech.) Wrinkleface did have ITS on his.

2) Stellings Boxes which push the whole drive mounting off the back of the boat by about 12".
+stronger, further setback
-still need external hydraulic steering from another vendor, and you need modified wing plates to make it work; also a more busier transom

As I told Chris, I did have ITS w/ sportmasters! I also told him I had like 275 flawless hours on the 525's & drives!!! I always tried 2 feather it up on plane carefully & did NOT run hard in any rough stuff!!! Proper normal service, etc!!! I had 5 blade Maximus props!! If I remember right, they tried those w/ the original owner but w/o the ITS & sportmasters it really didn't do much 4 that boat!! Good Luck Chris!!! Call anytime!! Tracy

Thanks, guys. Perhaps this is a question for another thread, but a concern of mine about this boat is that the 525s were rebuilt 120 hours ago by a company in Spring Lake MI. I've heard hugely varying things about their work (some pretty sketchy stuff) - like them billing the customers for top of the line parts in rebuilds but then using low end parts. After they were rebuilt, all three engines were consuming huge amounts of oil (35 quarts in 30 hours between the three). The current owner - a standup, honest guy - said he brought the boat back to the builder, they said nothing was wrong, but after that the problem was gone. Something isn't adding up...

To be safe, I'll assume the engines are still going through oil. Would this be a deal killer for you guys?

Not as long as the sale price has that in mind with where you are comfortable being $$ wise. There is a lot you can do with a 525, fairly easy to get ~600 reliable HP out of one and as long as you go easy on the drives, you should be fine. Stock XRs are easy to source when needed, but you can beef up a Bravo derivative drive as well.