Hey I'm looking at two basically identical boats. One with a 454 motor and an OMC King Cobra and one with a 454 motor and a Mercruiser Bravo 1, from the early 90's. Just wondering what the opinions are on the two out drives?
lipslide,<br /><br />Since OMC is no longer in business, I think that would settle it for me.<br /><br />Nothing wrong with the KC drive, it's just that the company that built it is no longer around.
The problem with the KC drive is that the later ones are hard to get parts for since they were totally different from the regular Cobra drives. The dog clutch KCs were pretty similar to the regular Cobra. I think they changed to the cone clutch KC around 1990 or so, the OD looks much bigger and obviously differnt than the older KCs.<br />One thing to keep in mind is the resale will never be as good as it would if you had the Merc drive, so the boat with the KC would have to be cheaper for it make sense. The other big thing is finding a place that can work on it for you if you can't yourself. Call around your area and see.
Are you sure the King Cobra equipped boat had a 454? Or was it a 460 Ford? The marine parts availability for the Ford may be more of an issue than the drive.
I think 1990 was a transition year for the big block King Cobra and you could get both the 460 Ford and the 454 GM engines, after 1990 it was the 454 only. 1990 was also the year they went to cone clutch and as already stated parts for it are getting ahrder to find.
