Sceptre with 1/0 questions

[bgreene]

Better suited on this forum....

What's considered the overall " best " I/0 and outdrive from Sceptre /Tsunami based on:
1. Saltwater use
2. Performance........WOT around 45 mph, and good cruise speed fuel economy
3. Reliability

[Bushwacker]

I'd vote for the Volvo DuoProp. My friend that ran the Moesly 21 Unohu for 27 years went through several MerCruisers. His last engine/outdrive was a 350Chev/275 hp Volvo. He said it was a 50 mph rig. As a structural engineer, he was very impressed with the design and construction of the Volvo compared to the MC.

[kmoose]

I agree, the Volvo Penta duo-prop is a great I/O. My friend had a Scepter with a 502 big block coupled to a Volvo drive and it never gave us a minutes trouble. The duo-prop will also give you excellent traction in seas and low planning speeds as well.

[bgreene]

What's the approx cost for that VOLVO set up ?

What's the typical installation cost ?

I generally see most with the 260 mercruiser.

[Bigshrimpin]

BG - There's a sceptre on ebay with a volvo 290 drive (non duoprop). The boat looks like may need a new motor. I believe you can just swap the lowers and make that a duo prop. You could probably get a rebuilt lower duoprop and new 350 and be into the boat for short money.

[bgreene]

350 CID / 260 hp Mercruiser bravo 1 outdrive...........Sceptre.........what's the average WOT speed ?

[FLexpat]

Originally Posted by bgreene

350 CID / 260 hp Mercruiser bravo 1 outdrive...........Sceptre.........what's the average WOT speed ?

About 40mph but I didn't hang at WOT much

[bigeasy1]

My WOT on the Tsunami is about 38 mph .That's with a 350 c.i. engine at 260 hp with a Mercruiser alpha drive.I almost always run with the canvas work up which slows my WOT down a bit. I had it up to 42 mph on flat day with the canvas down.
The Volvos are nice drives, and very reliable, Parts for them when needed can be very very expensive.one other thing to give thought to is ,are there dealer service centers close to you when you need service or parts. ?
Mercruiser has dealers on every corner.

[Bushwacker]

Originally Posted by bigeasy1

. . . The Volvos are nice drives, and very reliable, Parts for them when needed can be very very expensive.one other thing to give thought to is ,are there dealer service centers close to you when you need service or parts. ? . . .

I've heard trawler guys with Volvo diesels say the same thing . . . buying spare parts is sort of like walking into a jewelry store! But what counts is how OFTEN you need spare parts! Yacht Surveyor Dave Pasco says MC's use cheap gaskets on the cylinder heads and exhaust risers that go bad in 3-5 years. The Unohu's head gaskets developed external leaks on one of our Bahama's trips, so Bob called Frank Brown to see if he should tighten the head bolts. Frank said to leave 'em alone because disturbing the bolts might make things worst. I believe his last (of 4 MC engines) engine died because of a corroded riser that let water into the engine. I'd check out that Sceptre that Big Shrimpin mentioned with the Volvo drive and blown engine to see if you could adapt a Crusader engine to it, as they appear to be much higher quality engines and easier to work on per Pasco's experience! I think Crusader spare parts may also be more reasonable as well.

[FLexpat]

Had a 290 Volvo drive on my 20 Bertram - great drive and really liked it but kept popping trim hoses - very expensive parts. Also not great over 50 MPH - the profile of the lower unit caused root cavitation on aluminum props so I had to put on a nosecone. Bravos had not come out at that time and, with the cone clutches, the 290 was way better for me than the Alpha in spite of its minor hose problems.

Put a couple thousand hours on an early Alpha - decent drive but the shift interrupt was always problematic and an Alpha is torque limited to about 325 ft-lbs which is about 325HP on a SBC.

In the late 90s Merc came out with the Bravo - it has the cone clutches and pretty much copied the good features of the Volvo 290 - they upgraded it about 2005 to the 'sweptback' design to fix problems with the gear floors and some other stuff that was breaking in the 500 ft-lb range... They are now the entry level drives for racing. Imco, Konrad, and a few others are the higher end.

I got a sweptback Bravo 1X for my 23. If I was getting counter-rotating props I would get a Volvo. The Bravo 3 is the Merc version of that. Counter-rotating props are apparently better at cruise and worse at high speed. I got a great deal on my Bravo 1X and was worried about cost of replacing 2 props if I hit something. I will try to make up for a few percent in cruise economy with engine choice after I get everything else done with.

At the risk of degrading this thread into yet another Ford vs. Chevy vs. whatever, that's my $.02