Offshoreonly.com - Drive set back with stand off box

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerabout (Post 2171925)

How come all you guys experiment with drive height but not stand off dimension. I read many threads where it was just a case of 'standoff didn't work so I took it off'

Drive height can be changed in a hour or 2 with a spacer or a shorter lower unit,installing a ext box takes DAYS and re-rigging,motor rxr,longer hises,cables,etc. You also have to understand a few things-as you go back because of the angle of the transom you normally have to also raise the drive accordingly to compensate to make up for it,you are limited to about 3 inches with the current bravo shoty lowers. The std for boxes is 1 foot,if you wanted to go longer it would require a custom built box-a stellings production box is over 3000$,a custom one would be 3 times that by the time you had custom drive shafts,cables,bearing carriers,steering rams,re-rigging parts not to mention time. The stress of hanging the weight of a drive too far back on a boats transom would be something you would have to account for too,it can only hold so much factoring for leverage. The next thing to keep in mind is if going back one foot didn't work,another few inches is only going to be WORSE.
I didn't slap a box on my boat in a afternoon then take it for a spin and decide,nope,that didn't work. I spent thousands on the box, weeks of pizzing around re-rigging and aligning/building parts then a whole summer of prop and spacer testing and re-testing. After trying about every combination of prop and spacer with negative speed and handling results,I decided to remove the box and go back to my old set-up. As far as having a custom box built a little longer or shorter with almost guarenteed negative results-no fukking way,Smitty
here is a pictorial of what I went thru to install the box