Can anyone give me a reason not to run a couple of Arnerson Surface drives or there is another company local here called Seafury instead of conventional legs. They dont break. They must put a bigger percentage of power to the prop and servicing is done with a grease gun. Am i missing something or not. Talking about a 35 cigerette with twin 750hp power.
Thanks and Mary Christmas
Jason

Well, If they worked well on a cigarette hull, wouldn't you be seeing a lot of them replacing bravos?

I know they put pulse surface drives on Zero Cavity (38 strait hull) and took them off, that ought to be a indication.

Ask arneson....... They have a really clean bravo conversion....

Price might play a huge factor...

I think the biggest factor is how far back they stick out....most people like to swim off their boats sooner or later and people dont like to be dodging some sharp meat cleavers when trying to get back onto the boat! Me personaly...i like em! think they look bad a$$...and see no down sides to them other then what i mentioned above

Surface drives are tough to dock with. They also don't work well on many hull designs. They've been around for at least 30 years in HP boating and still are a very rare sight. When they are seen, it's usually on a cat. As far as reliability, in a v-drive application you do lose alot of mechanical pieces which can fail and add horsepower robbing drag. If your setup requires a drop box, you're back to chains, gears, etc. and are now back to where you started.

No down side!! We are rigging a 42 fountain with a pair of ASD 7 Arnesons. Call Rick Wimp at Arneson (415-485-0788) He will give you all the info you need. Greg

Has anyone ever put Arneson's on a Cafe' or similar straight bottom 35' Cig?

I can tell you first hand that on my straight bottom 1997 TopGun Max machine Worx Bravo 2" shorties didn't work at all, we lost of speed and handling.The X will be way higher on a surface drive.

These hulls actually respond best to a 1/2" lower X dimension than stock Bravo height.

Stepped flat running hulls seem to respond better to the surface drives definitely not straight bottom Cigarettes.

Konrad will work well as there are no Bravo style drives that will live on that hull with over 700hp.
Good Luck!

The 97 TG was the worst boat to install shorties. The "X"'s on all 7 kevlar's made that year were too high to from the start. I tried 1 inch shorties on mine as well. The next guy who bought the boat changed them out.

I have had Arnesons and they are B-U-L-L-E-T P-R-O-O-F. Zero repairs and dozens of hours of big HP blower motors on a heavy cat.

I have spent more $$$$ repairing 6's then what Arnesons cost.

Will it require a litle more attention around the docks? Only in a V, not a cat. You will learn. No big deal.

I ran into a guy in the BVI's that had a 35 Cafe with Arneson style drives and he loved them.

First of all, Arnesons do not need a special hull to work upon. This is another of the misconceptions out there.

Secondly, as there are becoming more and more staggered Mercury products out there, people are starting to realize that it is not the drive that makes it difficult to dock, rather the setup.

Our drives dock just as well as an I/O with the same setup. Even better than A Bravo when our Conversion Kit is used.

Yes, we have non stepped Cigarette hulls with Arnesons and to no surprise, they work great. Check out the thread on speed wake of the 1999 38' Top Gun with the Arnesons. Might surprise a few people. Arnesons out perform any of the I/O’ out there. Even the Mercury copies. We’ve been around and used very successfully before the modern stepped bottom boats of today came along.

We can boast a speed increase over a Bravos on the Fountains, Cigarettes, Hustlers, etc. rather than a speed decrease.

As for Cigarette the factory, they are not going to do anything other than MERCURY. This is not an insult to anyone, just a compliment to their relationship with Mercury. It apparently is a very tight one that Mercury goes to a great deal of effort to protect.

Same can be said of several other boat manufacturers out there, Mercury will do nearly everything in their power to keep the manufacturer solely a Mercury equipped boat. POLITICS.