The
New "It's Cool™" Drive Shower from Rex Marine
The new "It's
Cool™" Drive Showers for Bravo 1 & Bravo 3 drives from
Rex Marine not only look Cool, they actually do Cool
your drive unit better than any other covered shrouded type drive shower.
Most all
Drive Showers can spray water on the top cap of your drive. That's the
easy part. But if they don't cool the sides of your drive you're only
getting about half the potential cooling benefit of having a drive shower.
About 50% of the heat is actually pulled off the sides of the drive, not
the top cap.
The
Rex Marine It's Cool™ Drive Showers are specifically designed to
lay a sheet of water down the sides of the drive. It does
so even at low pressure sometimes encountered with high trim angles.
Before
you purchase another drive shower...
Take
a look at these flow photos
and ask yourself the following questions:
First, does the shower I'm considering purchasing cover the sides
of the drive with a solid sheet of water or does it simply spray
water on the top cap? Have I seen pictures of the drive shower I'm considering
purchasing actually flowing water installed on a drive? Or am I taking
a crap shoot based on ad hype to save a few bucks?
Second,
am I getting good value purchasing a drive shower that doesn't
cover my expensive drive with water completely? Is saving a
few dollars at the expense of not achieving maximum cooling a good investment?
Just how much is the protection of my drive worth? The Rex Marine Drive
Shower isn't the cheapest. In fact the dual pickup model is probably the
highest priced of them all. However the best simply costs more as no shortcuts
were taken in it's design or manufacture. The It's Cool™ Drive Shower
cools the best, looks the best, is constructed from premium 316 stainless
throughout and carries a limited lifetime warranty. That's
true value. And it's a no-risk investment. If you don't like it we'll
take it back unless obviously abused or damaged.
Third,
am I getting a drive shower that looks as cool as it works?
Or am I getting one that simply sprays water on the top cap, has exposed
bolts in the cover, or worse yet is just a piece of bent tubing with some
holes for my $125 plus? Even
premium seamless 316 stainless tube costs only a few bucks a foot. How
do I feel about paying $125 to $150 for about 4-5 feet of tube, bent with
some holes in it? Not to mention the cosmetic factor of an exposed
bent tube bolted on my drive.
Fourth,
does the drive shower I'm considering have large enough outlet
holes that will not clog with debris, weeds, salt corrosion, or barnacles,
thus rendering it useless? If the shower sprays like a shower
head you'd find in your bathroom expect problems ahead. Tiny holes like
that won't flow freely for very long in the real world. A plugged drive
shower with small holes is nothing more than a drive ornament. The 316
stainless spray bars in the Rex It's Cool™ Drive Showers have large
5/16" holes that are not likely to clog (larger than half the diameter
of the main spray bar tube). Further, if they do ever clog they're big
enough to easily fish debris or weeds out with common hand tools.
Next,
does the drive shower I'm considering have a pickup design proven
to pickup water even at high trim angles, and more importantly
distribute water well down the sides of the drive even at lower pressures
encountered at high trim angles? And
finally, does it have a short efficient pickup proven to not cause
cavitation or prop slippage that many longer pickups exhibit?
We
know of no other product available that can give positive answers to all
the above questions posed and that can deliver a solid stream of water
down the sides of the drive at extremely low pressure. Some drive showers
look ok but don't work so good. Some work pretty good (like some of the
bent tube models) but they really don't look so cool on the back of your
multi-thousand dollar rig (not too much bling factor on the tube deals).
In the end only you can answer what the value of your drive is worth and
how good you desire your boat to look. If you want the best, Rex Marine
has your drive shower. And it's also made in the U.S.A.
Note:
The It's Cool™ Drive Shower will not fit the late Bravo Drives with the finned top caps
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