I bought my Cafe Racer a couple of years ago from a guy who had added a RayLar upgrade to the 496s. The engines are supposed to produce 525HP each. Last summer on the very last day as I was taking the boat to the marina one of my drives crapped out. According to them the drive needs to be rebuilt. They are regular Bravo 1 Drives. When they called they said they could rebuild it in house or buy a rebuilt replacement. They said both the upper and lower gears were torn up and had pictures which I haven't received. They recommended the rebuilt replacement unit. When I asked them if the new unit would be strong enough for the engines and reminded them that the engines were supposed to produce 525HP and regular Bravo 1 Drives were supposed to be good for up to 400HP, they hesitated and said yeah it should be good, but would check. My impression is that the Bravo XRs go up to 575HP. My bottom line question to you guys is, do I need a stronger rebuild for the lower end. If they put gears for a stock Bravo 1 drive on as a replacement is that good enough. The engines are old and who knows if they actually produce 525HP. My fear is that they replace the drive gears with regular Bravo 1 gears and the drives crap out again down the road. I thought I once read about a stronger rebuild kit that basically put the strength of the Bravo XR in the Bravo 1 casing and wasn't too expensive. I can't find that information and was hoping you all could help. I had hoped to be using the boat June 1st. I suspect that isn't going to happen. In researching the drives I am seeing HP ratings all over the place. I've seen Bravo 1 up to 400, Bravo 1X up to 450 and Bravo XRs up to 575. Any help would be appreciated.

If buying a rebuilt drive from another company, it should come with a warranty. I'd want to know what that is as part of the decision.

Quite a few people I know are using the B1 X gears over the XR gears with 600+ HP and have had no issues. This is something you might consider before going to a XR gear set in the upper. Of course anything can break if you are always running hard from start to stop, The people I know are not abusing their stuff and do have some full throttle runs, but doing this with common sense.

Does this boat have a gray interior? If so it might be my old Cafe and I did the Raylar packages on them. Unless those drives were gone through after I sold the boat in 2016 they have some time on them for sure.

***EDIT*** Found a picture on one of your other threads about bilge vents, that's my old boat for sure. It was a hell of a good boat.

They ended up telling me that they could not put XR gears in the old Bravo 1 Drives even though I feel certain I had seen people say they had done that upgrade. They then said that a pair (matching) of rebuilt Bravo XR drives would be approximately $33,000. That is for used drives. Seeing how time for me is closing in on being able to use it and not knowing any better, I opted for the rebuilt Bravo 1 drive. I asked about the warranty as suggested and they said it had a 1 year warranty. They agreed that the Bravo 1 drives were under rated for the power and said I had the option of running it gently or upgrading to the stronger drives. I’m going with running it gently and will do more research as I can. Thanks for the suggestion. I did look at the Bravo X1 and just decided that I probably need to figure out a longer term solution if we want to run it fast. We haven’t been running it hard at all. That’s the frustrating part. We have essentially been doing what the previous owner advised and just being kind to the engines, drives and boat. Thanks very much for the reply.

Seeing your name, knowing the history and the boat does have a grey interior, I would say yes this is your old boat. I would love to catch up further on the boat. We love it. It is a nice boat. I also think I got it at a decent price. I bought it from Joe who I guess you sold it to in 2016. We bought it in August of 2020. Thanks for the reply.

I would look for a pair of rebuilt XZ(bravo 1x) whatever you want to call them and keep one of your current bravos for a spare just in case. They pop up on here semi often....33k for a pair of XR's???!!! NO THANKS! Can damn near buy teague or IMCOs for that price!! Used XR's pop up quite often too just keep in mind that you will probably lose a couple mph with XR's because of the straight cut gears in them. If it were mine...XZ's all the way and never look back.

33k for bravo drives is crazy!!! I would get away from the place that is quoting those prices.

Here was the quote

I found 2 Brovo XRs for $12,500 each ($25,000). Add shipping ($300), install labor ($900-$1500), overhead (10%), taxes (8%), we are estimating $32,000.

The problem is there are maybe 6-10 marinas around here and I’ve been through 2 of them already. Some won’t even work on performance boats or boats over 30’. This place has a good reputation and does storage. At one point, I found there were places that would only work on a boat if you were in storage over the winter.

The guy who sold me the boat says he told me that unless I did all the work myself the boat would break me. I hope he’s wrong.

I think these guys are honest and I like them.

Thanks. I will do some homework.