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IanInca said..
Fishdude- I have the Flow drive pod for 2 months. I'm 2yrs into owning foil drive and use it to prone and I only use the 3 blade prop. The flow drive pod is very good, very easy to swap between brands of mast if that's your thing. It's well made and pretty slick! Performance- I don't notice a great deal of difference on the getting up but this takes me a 2/3 seconds with a chip in. Noticeably less drab on touch downs but it's major advantage is efoil/hybrid - I feel it uses a lot less power and definitely glides easier. I have no hard facts, I'm pretty low tech! Only downside was the first time I used it I felt the motor vibrate through the mast a little more, now it just feels normal and I don't notice it. A big improvement for a relatively cheap upgrade. Uk rider who bought the carbon version.
I bought the carbon Flow Drive pod version. Concept is good, just two bolts to swap etc. Feels a bit less drag then the FD pod when re-entering the water. Maybe a bit of extra run time, but thats so condition dependant so hard to quantify.
Downside ... definitely was getting a fair bit of prop cavitation which ... was very annoying. The prop would be engaged, motoring along, then start spinning up and just not grip and drive. It was weird. Had to ollie up to release it, then it would grip when I came back down. Thought it was the 3 blade prop, not unfolding evenly or out of balance. But swapped back to the FD pod, everything else the same, same height and prop .... cavitation gone.
Also I think maybe its just 3d printed and so pretty brittle / fragile. Even though I was careful and followed the instructions and did not over tighten, the front saddle snapped after about 6 sessions. Maybe if the material that goes around the front of the mast had some flex to it would better cope with impacts and vibration and be more resilient.
My summary, good concept .... needs a bit more R & D to make it more durable and solve the cav issue.