My friend is looking at a 1988 33 fountain with TRS drives. What are the pros and cons to the TRS drives? Reliablility, parts, etc....

thanks

How much horsepower will be fed to the drives?

Ask Lucky Strike. They are very reliable drives, but somewhat old technology. Since they are so far out of regular production; parts are getting harder to get, but definately can still be found.

Someone wil bring it up any second now, so here goes:
http://www.konradmarine.com/

Konrad builds a rock solid direct bolt on replacement for the TRS. They tout that a Konrad has never been broken due to HP/Torque.

I boat of that age is not my taste, but if it were, I would not have heartburn in the TRS and would feel comfortable upgrading to Konrads someday. OSO member Biggus works for Konrad and can answer any TRS/Konrad questions you could ever dream up.

Love them

They are great drives...you can get parts no problem you just have to know where to look........ Konrads fit on ez if you want to go that way'

Love the one on our Donzi. Shifts smooth as butter.

TRS is one of the best drives made by Merk next to a SSM VI. If you snap one (which is hard to do) you can go to a Konrad. We run Konrads on our own Fountain and will NEVER go back to Bravo or Bravo varients. Konrad has yet to have a drive break and I can personally attest to how robust they are. They don't run as deep as the TRS and as such will let you run a modern prop.

I've owned many TRS boats over the years. They can certainly take more abuse than a Bravo and maintained correctly, they can handle up to 500 hp no problem. Yes, parts will be a problem in the future but that's where Konrad fill the void.

Our Konrad PRS system is designed as a direct bolt on for a TRS application.Absolutely no fabricating is involved in a TRS conversion.

I speak from experience, after you've installed your new Konrad drives, you can kiss drive problems goodbye. I'm over the 250 hr mark with mine. (behind 700 hp in a heavy old Top Gun) ...and most of that was R&D time, trying to break them.

Kurt, the Gun looks like it's sitting in the same place i saw it last... I hope you're getting to use it...

I have no experience w/ the TRS, but would buy a boat that had them no problem! I agree w/ what others stated... especially about the konrad conversion.