JUst thinking here guys between seasons.....I have just complete the install of a m-3 Procharger set up on my 500 EFI....I know the drive needs to be adressed so here goes.

I have been told that I can most likely get a season out of the bravo I if I am careful and drive it with some caution not to slam the throttle around and be easy on it coming out of the hole etc.....but I am thinking now is a good time to do it before it leaves me floating in the lake. Some say run it till it brakes some say up grade.... I know the right thing to do is upgrade it but may br the thing to do is change the upper gears to xr and have the tower reinforced...( maybe Mr. Gadgets can chime in here) or find a good used XR upper and go from there.

The guy who had the boat before me at one time had monster power in it anf the drive has had some work done to it. The gears in the lower were upgraded by him, I found this out when I swapped the guts to an IMCO shorty...Is there a way by pulling the rear cap or the top cap to tell if the gears on the upper have been upgraded as well just by looking at them without dis-assembly? ANy insight would be good here.

As far as asking the guy who had it before I would call him and ask but I bought the boat from an in be-tween owner who never used it....not even once, all he did was just installed a 60 hour 500 EFI take ( Bought the boats less Power) out and then lost interest.

So any help here in identifying the gears in the upper?

Bryan

alot depends on the weight of the boat. i run 800hp thru bravos 1 season and 1 broke forward gear.was a easy fix

27 ft twin step Donzi...................................6000lbs?

Bryan,
I have a customer running a 27' Baja with 1000hp thru a standard Bravo 1, old vintage!! So it can be done, but!!!

There isnt much of an upgrade to lower gears. There are two differnt styles, one set fits the small prop shaft and the other fits the larger propshaft. All are net forged gears.
The upper case can be fitted with a steel tower and XR gears or the new style X gears with thicker floors. That is probably what broke in Johny's drive. The floor breaks out of them.
I see best results with steel tower in cap and case, wheather it is an old or new style case. Meaning the XR/XZ case. It is hard to tell if your gears have been upgraded. One way would be to remove the top cap and measure the height of the tower race. The short one is about 7/8" and is used on the newer gears. This race is also retrofitted to the old case and cap so it looks like the tower it too tall and the race is slid down on the tower. The old gears will have a race that is about an inch tall.
You should eventually end up with XR gears in the upper. A good used XR upper, if setup properly would be fine also. I am working with Articfriends and have been having the netforged gears treated. This seems to be a good upgrade, but I would like to see more proof of the process. I will be building a drive for my boat this winter using the treated gears.. Then I will try to wear them out!

Hope this helps.. any other questions, give me a call.. 616-335-8446. I can explain it in more detail..

****

Looks like the new format doesnt like my name??? Maybe D_ck will work?? Better than ****

Hey ****,

There will be a few of us out there trying to break those processed gears. Lets hope we dont succeed.

Maybe you can ask OSO for a pardon on the name thing.


Vinny

D ick I will give you a call on tuesday....Thanks for the input.

Bryan