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  • Cobra conversion experience

    Just completed my conversion to the 116 end of July. Doing great so far. Here is my experience below.

    1988 235 Sundowner 350 (260HP) cobra.

    Drive shipped quickly and delivered as I expected.

    Drive assembled well using the instruction provide on site.

    Installing conversion kit was a little tricky, but done to my satisfaction with a mod on my part with the water inlet. I went and bought a 3/4 inch silicone heater core hose about 1 and half foot long and ended up trimming about 4-1/2 inches off it. The 3/4 silicone was able to stretch enough to slide over the inch from off the boat and secured with a clamp, the opposite end of coarse fit fine and was also secured with a clamp, other wise I couldn't get the hose and adapter kit provided to not kink worked with that for a couple hours at least before buying the silicone. That took the longest of all. I did not cut my exhaust boot and don't know what all the fuss is about with it. Using the existing boot (which was brand new) mounted to the exhaust at the transom like normal and slipped over the oval shaped part of the new gimbal with no problem, then secured it with a heavy duty zip ty.

    Installing the drive onto the boat was rather interesting. It went together very snug and I couldn't get the drive to go in the final 1/8 of an inch (just on one side) couldn't figure out for the life of me what was going on. Knowing not to force anything I could tell the washers were still spinning freely but couldn't turn the nut onto the stud. Decided to pull back off and check out what was goin on and 4 of the 6 mounting studs unscrewed with the nut. OH NO that cant be a good sign. In checking it out either the nuts or the studs had not been cut well and they were no good. Took the studs off my other mount and used the nuts also put back in the new unit and went together great. The old studs where slightly shorter than the new ones so I had to leave the washer off to get the nut onto the lock thread. Called tech support and they sent new studs, lock nuts and washers with out question.

    Bought a SeaStar SL3 top mount shifter w/trim and tilt as my shifter was an OMC and not reversible. Kit came with everything needed and installed well. Had to trim my mount area about a quarter inch on 2 sides for best fit. Love the shifter. Followed the instructions for setting the shift cable to the T as also provided on this site and could not get the throw for reverse. So I ended up adjusting the shifter in reverse instead of forward and it worked just fine. I left the original OMC shift assist in place and operational. The new shifter and drive shift so smooth the assist doesn't even hardly move to activate the switch. I did decrease my idle considerably to about 550 in gear. In forward or reverse it still cruises at a much faster rate at idle than I'd like but cant do much about that except pop it outta gear once in awhile.

    Break in was rough, (only because of the size of my boat and breaking a good planning speed) I hate it when the front end hangs up there. So the mid way break in hours sucked, but I done them. My previous drive I could only get between 32 and 36 hundred RPM. I always thought the motor was just worn out. I now hit the 42 - 46 hundred RPM like it is supposed to do and break plane much quicker. On occasion I get a little dolphin effect after hitting some wake but a sudden burst and then rethrottle takes care of that.

    Overall so far it is running and shifting better than ever. Will be changing the drive oil out real soon (close to the 20 hour mark). Also close to the end of season, don't know how many more hours I'll get in unless I take it all the way up river into the big lake. Most of our boating consist of running the river and playing in the tubes at the gravel pit or fishing.


    Thanks for supplying an affordable product.

  • #2
    Ok so a little follow up. Today I took the boat down river to the big lake (lake Michigan) went out on the big lake for a little while everything was going well. Noticed I had to go slightly past neutral to get outta gear today????? Came off the lake headed back home stop at one of the local parks to use the bathroom (don't like everyone using the one on board) backed out of the dock just fine, shifted to forward gear and nothing. No forward or reverse!!!!!! Bummer what's going on here????? opened engine compartment shift cable moving!!!!! Ok call my daughter have her come pick me up from the park so I can go get my trailer and pull it out of the water! Thankfully this park has a launch (a lot of them don't). By the way its about 10 miles down river to the lake from my dock. Some no wake zones at the Marina's. Daughter's hubby delivered my trailer and we pulled it out, took it home. Grabbed the shift lever at the drive once home and it shifts into gear had buddy move shift lever in the boat and nothing at the lever at the drive. So must have a broken shift cable at the drive (or something else). The cable came with the conversion kit and is only a few weeks old. Will call Monday to see if it is covered and disassemble tomorrow to fix. I'll most likely go down to the Marina and buy a new one to get it back on the water, Wonder if they will send a new mounting gasket kit too or not?? Still super happy so far. More to follow. It has been shifting super smooth, as I had mentioned earlier it shifts so smooth the shift assist doesn't hardly even bounce to activate the switch, so don't understand why I have a malfunction there?? Will know much more tomorrow I guess.

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    • #3
      Ok so to elaborate on what the problem was from above--On Sunday morning I pulled the drive and the cable was not broken!!!???? Looking closer I found that the lever connected to the shaft had a setscrew hole in it and a pin hole through the shaft, but nothing there so lever was moving but shaft wasn't, looked around and there it was a tapered pin with threads to screw into the lever through the shaft. It must have vibrated out, (maybe not tight in the beginning). So I put some blue lock tight on it and screwed it back in. Ran down to the Marina and replaced the gaskets. Put back together, drained the oil and refilled since it was at about the 15h-18h break in point, which looked good by the way just dust on the plug magnet. Back in the water by noon and boated all day.IMG_0795.jpg

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