JUST looking into the possibility of doing something in this area and THUS getting a reverse gear and neutral.......your thoughts?
Do it all the time in our ski-race boats; turbo 400, modified for boats, three speed forward, (sometimes we lock out first as its un-needed), neutral, reverse and PARK. Park helps during prop changes, warming up boat without creeping forward. Will easily take 1000 hp w/no problems. Have had them last for full seasons of circle and marathon races. Have been standard in Schiada for over 20 years. They make a great package for play boating as well...
what type of ratio in the V ?
I have a TH 400 and first and park are locked out. With only 1:15 gears in the box, second is basically a no wake gear, leavinf third only as a running gear. I'm going to try going to 1:29 gears and bring first gear back into the picture as a no wake zone gear so that second is more usable. Whaddaya think Burt? BTW its spinning a 12x 14 three blade.
I an running a turbo 400 also with a 1:38 gear ratio.Its alot of fun shifting from second to drive when you have alot of HP!
I got a 2 flatbottoms, both with powerglides. 1st gear = no wake; 2nd gear is for driving. love the fact of throwing it into neutral and reverse. Much better than the old direct drive in/out boxes. the trans have manual bodies in them and no torque converter. In fact I just had one rebuilt and picked it up 2 days ago.
Grim,
We ran everything from 38 to 50% overdrive, and from 11.5 x 15 to 12 x 16 props. In those days I had nothing but turboes so we had lots of top end horsepower. Three blades were so much smoother we really proferred them. As you know now, we've pretty well switched over to dry sumped 6's, but I still love the V-drives. Gary Teagues EFI turboed, 500 inchers (actually 496) will give you 1550 HP all day long for a full season. Whats really neat, turbo'ed motors are so QUIET...
Turbo 400 or powerglide is the way to go. Do it. You will love your boat for it.
96,You're right. The powerglide is also shorter if space is a problem, but not sure it will take the BIG horsepower of todays motors.
being a newbie to all of this - what are the distance "issues" to the V drive from the engine? I do you a couple of shortie TF kits to make it all wurk.
How about a trans cooler?......air or water?
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