Question for GN7

[gn7]

Gn7 Its amazing how much the bottom moves in the V drive area my V drive had a solid 1/8 inch of clearence from the plate to the floor ,after one season the groove in the bottom from hitting the plate was very noticable.The force on my V drive plate is 10 degrees up and forward on one side and down on the other, now tie the V drive to the floor dead center to stiffen that area up just for conversation ,,that energy would have to be displaced somewhere. Funny you mentioned V drives a friend was glassing a strut bushing in his shaft log the other day and my first thought was this . Your taking something that floated thru a hole allowing it to seek its own path seperate from the bottom now its attatched and every time the bottom moves it goes with it ?If nothing else it seems like it would play hard on the V drive output shaft bearing .

Your buddy is going to end up tearing the shaft log out of the boat, GUARANTEED!

Thanks guys for continuing this discussion about this, I'm trying to understand why or why not to brace a drop thru. Below are a couple pics I got from some recent GN boat builds that are braced. Hope these guys don't mind me using their pics as examples.
My opinion on the bracing is that, it is there to limit any lateral movement of the strut when turning. I don't feel there should ever be any twisting or torsional forces going on with the strut as the prop shaft is supposed spin freely. Not quite sure I understand how there would be vertical movement on the strut that would put enough force to separate the stringers from the hull, although there is some I'm sure, but not enough to transfer to the stringers through a brace and start any damage. If this were the case with vertical forces a drop thru would be much, much weaker than a bolt on, correct? I do agree with that the motor plate may not a good brace as the torque of the engine could be transferred to the strut and cause some lateral motion. So, continue on, tell me I'm an idiot it's okay, just explain why. Thanks.

Never said there were torsional twisting forces in the strut. The stringers and hull twist. When they do, the bracing, if tied to the stringers, can tear up the bottom near the strut, of loosen the stringers near the bracing.

These two boats, Andrews and Locks have ZERO time on them to speak of. Locks is ZERO, and Andrews has the enduro under its belt. Pretty smooth water relatively speaking. We'll see how it works out for them.
Not telling you not to tie the strut to the engine, telling you I know of no GN currently running that has the strut tied to the engine or stringers.
I have to ask again, when tying the strut to the engine, are you bracing the engine, or the strut?
The other thing I always have to ask when I see this setup is, which came first, the strut placement, or the engine placement. Its just shear lucky that the motor plate and the strut end up like that? I know I can't tie my strut to the motor plate if I wanted to. Would I move either so I could? FUCK NO! So I guess you have to be pretty damn sure where you want that engine when you do this, OR you just stick the engine where it all works out so you can.