As a lot of you may know, we tried a new product on the race boat this season called a "Drive Guardian". Made by Marine Design Corp, the Drive Guardian takes place of a regular rubber drive coupler and replaces it with a "clutch like" mechanism. The idea is to erase any torque spikes that are sent to the drives. These torque spikes can be caused getting on plane, rough water, etc.

So, the big question. Did they work?


Yes! Yes they did. We compared our pinion gears from the 2013 race season to those of the 2014 race season and the results are fantastic. There is still some wear, which was expected. But there was absolutely no pitting or chipping, which is what we found a lot of last year.

"At the end of 2013 when I pulled our drives apart, I couldn't believe my eyes. We were running on borrowed time, and only ran a handful of races that year. I really didn't think my drives could last a full season. Fast forward to 2014, we ran more races, won another championship and the gears look great. I have confidence in my drives again." -Throttleman and engine builder Jason Saris.

Comparison pictures of the gears from 2013 and 2014 to follow.

We recommend this product to anyone suffering the bravo blues. Particularly in rough water environments, or anyone who likes to run hard.


Our boat is a 32 Cobra- 650hp Saris Racing Engines- XR Drives with IMCO -2 lowers. 4 Blade BBlades Propellers and I can assure you, we don't run easy. Pushing 8500lbs through the water isnt an easy task, and the Drive Guardians have made our bravos withstand the abuse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSduiml0fjA

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http://www.marinedesigncorp.com/
www.facebook.com/TeamSaris

For more information and pricing call Jason at Team Saris Performance Marine- 518-644-3080

Original thread when we first teamed up
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...14-season.html

Other race teams sporting MDC products include Smith Brothers Racing, Spirit of Qatar and CK Motorsports Cat Can Do

Those velocity stacks look awesome must really hear the intakes when you punch it!

Does the Drive Guardian fit in the space in a normal install or the engines need to be moved forward?

It's my understanding that it's a direct replacement for the coupler.

We have been extremely pleased with our Drive Guardian system as well. MDC has been great to work with. Running our OPA class 6 boat as hard as we do is tough on the drive train and the Drive Guardian gives us the confidence that we can push the equipment to the max.

i really like the concept of these things. Just curious Johnny do you notice it doing its job, i mean do you notice when its really pressed will it let you know its slippin a bit?

This product if properly adjusted makes a lot of sense to me. The question is how much are people willing to part with for what many will see as preventative maintenance and/or an insurance policy? What's the cost on these? At $1000 or so for a similar clutch unit in the automotive aftermarket I can see these really catching on in the marine world, but if these are $2000+ each the line at the door probably won't be too long IMO. Since most folks are running twins, this insurance might be too costly. IMO if it cuts the number of drive replacements/rebuilds in half, it's a good long term investment, but again most people will likely not want to pay big money for something that can't be seen or for something that doesn't make the boat faster.

Not to mention the engine(s) have to be pulled in most cases to install this product (unless the engine(s) are out anyway), so that adds significantly to the bill.

Awesome product overall!

Personally I don't think it will help an overpowered drive last any longer from premature wear.

It will lesson parts breakages from torque spikes incurred when the prop exits and re enters

Sometimes a drive breaks due to a part prematurely coming apart and sending metal through the drive resulting in other parts breaking.