I have a 02 34 vyper with 500s efi, turning 30 pitch lab finished props ,hits the Rev limiter pretty hard. Has anybody tried five blades on the same style of boat?

I was going to try a set this year but sold the boat. Verbi ran them on his avenger and liked them. Harder on the drive...remember that.

Why are they harder on drives?

It grabs more water (obviously more blades means grabbing more water) which it turns makes it harder to spin

Ok , that makes sense. I have some pics of our dash that I changed, would like to post them.Could you tell how?

If you go to a 5 blade you will need to be more careful with your hole shots. That extra stress on the drives with your size boat will make it easier to blow one.

You have to pay for a membership to use the file attachment service on this site. I think some other folks are uploading from other places like photo bucket.

Drives deep in the water + 5-blades = unhappy Bravos. Most guys will bust a drive just cruising 40 - 50 MPH as the motor(s) are making peak torque and you have a lot of hull (drag) in the water.

It's sound like maybe I should just try bigger props ,or get more cup put in these.

Thats probably the right choice. Like Knot 4 Me said, every time I broke mine with 5 blades it was at cruise. It was never pretty either such as snapped vertical shafts and upper gears puking.

Yeah, don't want to do that . I just had to rebuild a upper $$$$$