lower unit options

[tylerdelorme]

my boat needs some setup tweaking, and one of the things that has been made clear to me is that i need a low water pickup. the boat is a hydrostream valero v with a 150 mercury xr2 six inches of setback with a detwiler hydraulic jack. my marine mechanic has mentioned that the present lower unit could be made to work with the proper nosecone and a tourqe tab installed his other option would be to find a cle case whitch would have all these goodies already built in. he was sugjesting swapping the guts from my lowerunit into the cle case. my question is which is better (probably the cle swap) and from a cost effective point of view what would be the difference in cost vs end result??

what do you guys figure and are there other options??

thanks

[David]

Well, it's almost fall in the Great White North, so you could pull off your gearcase and ship it south to one of the masters for a nose cone and torque tab.
http://www.low-h2o.com/about.htm
http://www.bobsmachine.com/Products/Nose_Cone_Bigfoot.cfm
You could call one of them for a cost estimate and compare that to the price of a CLE. Used CLEs can be found here. Top Gun is a usual suspect in southern Ontario. Where are you? Canada's big eh.

I've got a Bob's on my boat and it runs alright.

[RONNIE]

I do nose cones every week do a search

[tylerdelorme]

is my stock gearcase worth souping up? i think that the xr2 came with the small gearcase but at some point it must have blown because i bought it with a nice fresh big one on there its in nice shape for sure. but is it worth spending money on to fix up? and what can you do with a stock gearcase?

[tylerdelorme]

"Where are you? Canada's big eh"

im in the french part of canada. in a place called gatineau. but for all technical purposes well call it ottawa because im realy on the boarder of quebec and ontario and i dont expect most people from the united states to even know where gatineau is. im a walk away from our nations capital. but on the french side of the boarder. its a strange place the french and english up here are always sh*ting on each other up here. and yes the lakes will be frozen soon so ill have lots of time to figure out what im doing with my boat. so who are some of the big names for performance boating up this way??

[rock]

Cone installation is not a difficult job. Buy the kit from Bob's and follow instructions. If you have basic mechanical skills and don't mind doing the grinding, sanding, and painting, your case is well worth investing in. Might as well add a torque tab while your doing this.
Rock

[David]

The XR2 came with the big gearcase and a 2:1 ratio. The 200s came with the same gearcase but with 1.87 gears. If your case is new, it could be either. Big names in Ontario? Top Gun and Speedmaster for motors. John Spaeth (Hydrostream Canada) for hull work. With 150 HP, I'd think you'd be fine just putting a cone and torque tab on your stock gearcase. Leave the stronger cases (CLE, sporty) to someone with more HP. I blow up a small gearcase every few years with a lightly modified 150, so any gearcase advice from me is suspect.

I live in Windsor, work in Detroit, and boat near Orillia.