Way2slow

I was thinking around 17" pitch and 13.5 would be close, but that gear ratio is going to make it fairly sensitive to weight and how well it gets out of the hole. I have a feeling if you unload it, taking out a lot of the weight, you should see a rather significant increase in top speed. If you have a lot of weight in the bow, that's a speed killer because it has to be able to get the bow up or the hull will be running too wet and creating tons of drag.

Since I've not run Black motors since the late 60's I've been doing a little research and have come to the conclusion, as for what prop you need, I don't have a clue. I had all these preconceived ideas on what I would probably start with, but after doing some research on Merc's, I'm totally wet behind the ears and would only lead you down the wrong path. The first kicker is the gear ratio of your lower unit being 2:0? something, I've never dealt with one that tall. I'm used to 2:7 and 2:8. Then looking at their props, they only have a couple that would even begin to work with your motor, and neither of those looked like something I would want to run. I was thinking you would probably need something like a 17" pitch but with that gear ratio, that's going to be a lot, and looking at Merc's, that would be over 14" diameter, and I don't think that would work. So, before I lead you down a blind hole, I'm gonna have to say I don't have a clue on what to recommend for something to start with. Just don't have the experience with anything close to what you have. Four Stroke motor; I'm a two stroke guy Tin boat, I'm a fiberglass, riser hull guy 2:0 lower unit, I've run 1:1 turning close to 10,000 rpm and 2:8, not even close to 2:0

One more thing I should remind you of. You are moving into summertime and as the water gets warmer the slip is going to be greater, so the rpm is going up a little and the speed is going down so remember that as you start troubleshooting. Given a choice between 200 rpm below max and 100-200rpm over max, I always go for the over max rpm.

Well, props have always puzzled me. A person will fork down thousands of dollars on a new boat and motor. The ONLY thing that's applying that motors power to the water and how it's going to react with the hull is the prop. Then because a good prop can be several hundreds of dollars, they buy a cheap**s aluminum prop.

I'm not sure in your situation I would opt for the four blade over a three-blade prop. On most bass boat hulls, I prefer a higher rake three blade SS prop. There are high rake four blade props that perform pretty well and some even like something like the High Five, but if the setup is right, I generally get better all-around performance from a high rake three blade. However, the trick to that is being able to get bow lift. I have to admit though, I have little experience with aluminum hulls. Glass boats with riser hulls are a totally different animal than what a tin boat has. Aluminum hulls generally have a lot of flex so you get a lot of cupping affect that creates a lot more drag and they tend to run very wet in the first place. That makes them very sensitive to weight and weight distribution so it's very easy to overload the hull with a Large TM on the bow, several heavy batteries and then if you have other accessories like Power Poles etc, it becomes extremely difficult to get the bow lift you need for good speed. A good setup is going to have the water spray coming out behind the diver's seat. If you have it coming out in front of the console, you are running too bow heavy, or just too heavy all together. If that is the case, you might want to take as much weight out of the boat as you can. Just the cranking battery, empty live well and even the TM off the bow if that's not a major challenge. If this does not put the spray behind the drives seat, you have a significant setup problem to work out, or totally the wrong prop. A prop with more rake will help lift the bow, and deep cup will help lift the stern, helping lift the boat out of the water. Just remember, watch the tach, because as the speed increases so will the rpm and you don't want to get more than 100-200 more than the max rated rpm . Once you get that worked out, and have good lift, start putting it back together and trying it with each item added. they you can see what and where the problem is.

I live by the old saying "Believe half what you see and nothing of what you hear". I'm not saying a bass fisherman would lie but a whole lot of them seem to stretch the truth about the fish they caught and performance of their boat, A LOT! I will also say, 32mph for that boat does seem a little slow, but I think 40 is a bit of an exaggeration with a fishing load in it. So here's some things you might want to check. First get an accurate RPM reading with the boat at WOT and trimmed to perfection. Find the gear ratio for you lower unit and the size/pitch prop you have now. Also inspect the prop for dings and bent blades. It's very easy to roll the leading edge and not notice it. Also note, the RPM should be close to the recommended max for that motor, or it may be over propped and damaged. Find a good online prop slip calculator and fill in the blanks and get the percentage prop slip. An average setup should be 11 to 13%. Below that is high-performance, go-fast boats. much above that and you start getting into barges, but I have seen some as high as 18%, before working on them. Now, if the slippage is ok, and the rpm is up where it's supposed to be, then I would start looking at the motor's performance because it's highly likely it's down some. The first thing I would look at then would be to make sure the throttle is fully opening. I have seen tons of low performance problems being as simple as the throttle cable needing adjusting. This is as far as I can take you on checking your motor, I know diddly squat about your motor, so other than doing a compression test, I would not know anything about where you need to go from there.

Let me also ask, how bad do you want a little more speed. More speed is usually gained with a little different weight distribution, engine height, engine setback and a prop properly matched to the hull. One your boat, you might gain a few more MPH, perfecting the setup, but you can easily spend $1,000 doing it. It's not like you have a hydro-rocket to start with some more speed is not going to come cheaply.

Actually, props are very complicated and not many average boat owners really understand them. In the simple explanation, changing pitch is like changing the gear ratio so it's a tradeoff for what you want. As you go down in pitch, the boat launches harder and gets on plane easier but the RPM increases, and at WOT can be too small and to overrev the engine. As you go up in pitch, the boat launches slower and may run a little faster, but does not turn as many RPMs, so you generally want to prop one so with your normal load, live well full, gas in tank passenger and gear the motor turns within a couple hundred RPM of the manufactures max rating. Three blade VS four blade. Because of the drag created by extra blade surface, the four blade props tend to be a couple MPH slower than the same pitch in a three blade. For heaver boats and underpowered boats, the four blade props tend to give a better hole shot because of that extra surface reduces slip. Because of the thinner blades and stranger material, Stainless props usually outperform aluminum props because the thinner blades cut the water better and the stronger metal does not flex back as much, creating a lot less slip. Then you get into the technical aspects of rake, blade shape and cupping. I'm not goig to begin to try explaining all that but will just say you have to pick the prop that best matches what you hull design likes. This is why you DO NOT try saving a dollar and order props online. Find a reputable dealer that has a try before you buy policy and knows props. As long as you don't damage the prop in any way and just make a short test run, the let you try one, as long as you DO plan to buy one from him when you get the best match. In general, most people opt for the three-blade aluminum in a pitch that satisfies their needs because that's the cheapest way you can go. A properly matched SS prop can be expensive. If you have a larger faster bass boat, and want max performance you order a custom tuned prop. I never ran stock props on mine. One thing I forgot to mention, don't think you can just go to a higher pitch prop to get more speed, it don't work that way. Once you start loading the motor more and dropping the RPM and it comes out of it's peak power band, you can actually loose a lot of speed versus what a smaller pitch prop was giving you. Also, the cupping of the blades have a lot to do with the RPM.

It's kinda like the old saying, beating a dead horse. The seams bust the thread because the UV light has destroyed it, same reason the vinyl starts to crack and split. I have repaired bunches over the years, but not with no repair kit. I've restored boats and cars most of my life and have a Consew 255 commercial, walking foot sewing machine and order new UV protected thread and Marine Vinyl and replace all of it. That only requires one repair and usually less than $200. Five yards of vinyl, five yards of sew foam and one medium spool of thread will cover both pedestal seats and the console seats. You can take it to an upholstery shop and if he only cares about the dollars he will make and it's just the thread breaking apart, and not the vinyl ripping at the seam, he can restitch it. If he's straight up with you, he will tell you he can do that, but it won't last very long because the vinyl will probably start ripping at the seam in no time. Granted, I doubt you have a commercial sewing machine, so you are at the mercy of an upholstery shop, but the only way to fix it once and be done is to recover them.

That's simple, only buy what you think you are going to burn that trip or within a month. By the way, filling the tank for storage is not a good idea, that only leaves you with a whole tank full of bad gas to dispose of. That filling the tank for storage is from the old metal tank days where they were subject to extreme condensation build up if there was exposed metal. Back before the ethanol gasolines, the military required adding SeaFoam to the tanks of vehicles not regularly driven. They claimed that would keep it usable for a year. Since I've been retired since 1996, I don't know if they still claim that with the junk we have now, but I didn't even trust that philosophy then for use in my POV's and boats.

Understand, ethanol fuels and the gasolines we buy today are junk, there is no disputing that fact. However, when proper maintenance and storage procedures are followed, I've never seen where there are any more issues with them than the old non ethanol gasolines of the past. The problem with them is you MUST follow those procedures and very few people know or are willing to follow the proper storage procedures and that's where ethanol fuels get their bad rap. Left to sit and evaporate or break down in the fuel system they can and will wreak havoc on the whole fuel system. Today's gasoline does not like the be stored, and the warmer the temperature and the more the exposure to elements, the worse things get. That's why I remove the gasoline and purge the fuel system on my boats if going to be left sitting for a couple of months or more. I have a log splitter I might use once a year that has a 10hp B&S engine and there is really no practical way to properly purge the fuel system. I just keep one of those $15 ebay carbonators on hand and so when I go to use it, I put a new carb on it before I even try to start it. I used to try running it once a month like I do my chain saws and other gas-powered tools but decided it's easier to just replace the carb. Trying to clean it is usually useless it's in such bad shape.

Wow, Bankc actually knows his stuff about these things. As I mentioned, if you are using Teir 1 gasoline all this voodoo magic stuff you put in the tank everytime you buy gas is wasted money, but if you feel it's needed, and you feel better about using it, go for it. An OEM stock motor designed to burn 87 octane should only be run on 87 octane. As you increase octane, the burn time increase, (it burns slower) which as mentioned reduces performance and increases carbon build up (which happens to be the number one killer of two stroke engines) because it reduces combustion temperature. I say number one, it's probably a toss-up between carbon buildup and bad gas. If you have modified your engine so the compression is over 130 psi, then you want to look at increasing the octane and maybe the timing some, but otherwise, don't think you are doing your engine a favor by running higher octane in 87 octane engines. Run fresh, Tier 1 gasoline recommended by the manufacture and your engine will be happy. If that don't make you happy, then run what does. A little background on my experience with two strokes and outboards. I built my first two stroke motor about 1960 on an old lawn mower. In 62 to 65 I was racing and modifying McCulloch Mac-8 and Mac-10 go cart engines. In 67 to 73 I was racing an modifying outboard. I got out of outboard racing but still built and modified engines for others. In the late 90's I got into mostly just modifying OMC 3.0 200/225 engines. My thing was taking those engines and getting 300+hp and almost 300 lbs of torque so they would launch a heavy bass boat like it was shot out of a cannon and run faster than most people had the nerve to drive one. I don't know much about four stroke outboards, because I got out of them about the time, they were getting popular but don't have a clue how many automobile engines I have built and modified for racing. A million hours using die grinders in outboard motors and automotive cylinder heads pretty much destroyed my hands is the reason I'm not messing with them much now.

It's your motor, run what makes you feel good about what you are using. I have at least a nickels worth of experience with motors, and I personally don't buy ethanol free; todays motors are designed to run up to 10% ethanol. 10% ethanol became pretty dominate back in the late 80s to where you had a hard time finding non ethanol. Back then the motor manufacturers didn't have all the bugs work out the ethanol caused with hoses, gaskets etc. From the mid 90's on, they pretty much knew what they were doing, and I've never given it a second thought about pulling up to an ethanol pump. However, like everything else on the internet, one person can have a problem and a million people will make it sound like they had it. A million people can never have a problem and you hear nothing about it. I only have two pet peeves about the gasoline I use. The main one is it has to be a Teir 1 brand, none of that discount junk. I don't even run that stuff in my lawn mower. The second is I only buy from high volume stations, that reduces the chances of getting bad gas. I also try to buy only what I think I'm going to burn with a little extra, that way I don't have to worry about having a lot of gas going bad in the tank if I don't go for a few weeks. I only use SeaFoam in the gas when I know it's going to be sitting more than a month. About every 50 hours I will add 1-1/2 oz per gallon, just to help clean the engine. It the gas you are buying is a good Tier 1, all those extra additives are just money dumped into the lake. Old/bad gas damages a hellavalot more motors than that little ethanol, it just helps make the gas go bad quicker. Today's gasoline goes bad very quickly. In a boat sitting outside in the sun, a month is the max I will leave gas in a tank, and stored inside, two, no more than three months is the max I will let gas sit in a tank and even then I want SeaFoam in it.

Sounds like he like a lot of people with their automobiles, all you have to do is put gas in and drive them. Everything else will magically take care of itself. I was over at a guys house picking us something I had bought from him and his teenage son pulls up in a Honda Fit. Motor was noisy as all h**l. I mentioned it to him, and he said it's been sounding like that for a couple of days but was getting worse. I asked him if he had checked the oil in it, his answer "how do you do that?". His dad didn't even know enough to realize it didn't have any oil in it.

Sounds like money is a serious issue if you are only looking to spend $100 and not $200. This should be the minimum battery for what you want to do and is definitely NOT one of the best. EverStart Maxx Lead Acid Automotive Battery, Group Size 27 12 Volt, 830 CCA - Walmart.com

Should be easy enough to figure out. If you have an ohm meter you can do it just by doing resistance checks. If not you should be able to just use one battery, but see if this helps you any

The pee hole, is nothing but a visual indication the motor is pumping water. I has absolutely nothing to do with the actual cooling of the engine. It is also a dangerous indicator to depend on, that why I say a water pressure gauge is an essential item. OMC recommends a minimum of 16psi water pressure on that motor. 10psi will give you a good stream out of the pee hole and will still fry it. What people fail to realize, just because water is circulating, that does not mean that motor is getting cooled. Just like with a car engine, they run a pressurized system to raise the boiling point of the water and it can run hot when it was full of water with a bad radiator cap. The engine develops hot spots while it's running that will cause the water to boil in that area, if it's not pressurized enough to keep it from boiling. When it starts to boil, the steam in that spot starts pushing the water away and out of the of the system. That spot grows and pretty soon you have not water in the cooling system. Even with an outboard that has a constant source of fresh water, hot spots will develop and not let water circulate through them if there is not enough pressure to keep them from developing. That water turns to steam, and steam does not cool an engine. That's why I say have a water pressure gauge and keep a good water pump. I never looked to see if one was peeing when running a water pressure gauge, could have care less if it was or wasn't. Lots of insects love readymade hole for nest, so if you don't keep something stuck in them when the boat is parked, that get plugged quite often. No pee hole is going to tell you if you have the pressure you need, just that there is water moving through the motor.

No, the heat sensor will not keep it from overheating, it's only going to make the buzzer sound if it's working. I hope you are running a water pressure gauge, that's a very important indicator to have. As far as the pee hole, on that motor, they take a little longer than most. It has to fill the exhaust chest before it starts coming out and that's close to five gallons of water. As mentioned also, you should also replace the water pump/impeller every three, no more than four years. Learn to do it yourself and it's fairly cheap insurance and not that hard to replace. It can be done by yourself, I've done bunches of them by myself, but the lower unit is a little heavy and having a second pair of hands makes it a lot easier.

I seriously doubt it and hope not. Back somewhere around 2008 I was having a hard time finding it so I called them to find a distributor. Since the nearest one was 25 miles and there was not one in the town I lived in, they told me if I bought 10 cases of the 16oz cans they would sell it to me as a distributer. With shipping it still cost me less than $40 a case. With 240 cans of the stuff, I'm still using that I bought back then, and have a huge smile on my face every time I open a can of it now, knowing it cost me less than $1.70 a can. Back then it was only costing me $2.25 a can though.

I know the is not the place to sell something but figured I would mention it here just in case someone was looking for one. It might be sold before someone sees it in the trader. After 54 years, my 72-year-old wife has found her a 42 year old Facebook love and said she wants a Divorce, so got to start getting rid of stuff fairly quickly. I'm not going to post pictures, I can email anyone that might be interested some. Lowe L1436L around a 2005 with no damage, only minor scrapes and scratches. I have the title, just haven't looked it up. Galvanized Trailer Fold down portable seats Small deck on front for mounting TM and some dry storage. Running lights. 6GA cable to front for TM Lowrance Elite-4XHDI for the back Garmin ECHOMAP UHD 73?? mounted on ball mount with GT54 XDUCER mounted ON tm for the front Your choice, early 80's 25hp Mercury or 1978 Johnson 9.9 with 15hp carb. Also have the 9.9 carb (or you can buy both motors) Motor Guide X3 45# 12v 36" shaft that has only been used a couple of times. I'm thinking around $2,600 with the 9.9 $2,800 with the 25 and $3,200 both. The boat is located in Jeffersonville GA, and I usually only deal face to face with cash. That way I don't have to deal the merchant marine at sea and wants to me his bonus check to cash and send him the balance. (like I'm a flipping idiot) PM me an email address and I can send pictures.

The first one was about 10 years ago, I cut up into small enough pieces with a chain saw to throw them in a dumpster because I couldn't find a source for disposing of it. This one was about to meet the same fate until I got curious and called the counties land fill. and supposedly they are taking them for $35. Guess where this one is going. As for saving parts, that ain't gonna happen. I'm about to start tossing thousands of dollars' worth of stuff I have accumulated by saving parts. It's all going. A half dozen motors will get sold for scrap metal, everything what's not scrap metal, cowlings and at that stuff will go to the dump. I don't even want to mess with trying to sell it. I'm going to call a friend that still works on them and see if he wants any of it first, then toss all of what he doesn't want. There's a couple thousand dollars worth of just carburetors. After 55 years of being married to the same women, she hits me saying she has found a new younger guy and wants the big D. Can't convince her it one of those Catfishing scams/cons.

I have a 17' Stratos I was going to restore but decided to scrap it. However, the trailer under it might be a little bit over kill for what you are wanting. I was considering just taking the axle out and put under my single axle utility trailer (I made from another boat a scraped) and making it a tandem axle.

I'm not going to say Ethanol gas won't cause problems with some motors, especially older ones from the mid 90's back that had not had the gaskets and hoses changed. Ethanol did cause the early rubber products to dry and crack, and some of them swell and leak, but for the most part, manufacturers made the production changes to correct those long before 10% Ethanol became the norm for fuel. I've had and still have older motors from the late 60's and early 70's I ran on 10% Ethanol based fuels and still have a 1973 9.9 Johnson and a 1982 25hp merc that I still don't hesitate to put it in them. I've run it in 300+HP, modified OMC's and a stock 225 Ficht for years, again, never thought twice about pulling up to the 10% pump. Like I've said before, it's like having oil injection on a motor. If something happens, that's the first and easiest thing for the mechanic to blame it on, even though that's rarely the actual cause of the failure. Most of the pictures you see and stories you hear about ethanol gas, it's not the gas, it's the poor maintenance and long periods of sitting, letting it evaporate out and the water and oil trapped by it caused the problem.

Sounds like me. I bought my first boat when I was 13 (17' aluminum canoe and still have it); my first car when I was 14 (48 Ford for $10), second car (53 Ford for $40) when I was 15 and first real boat (brand new 14' glass boat with 65hp Merc) when I was 16 and a senior in high school. I was allowed to drive at 13 (close to 14) but not into town, just the dirt roads and county roads near the house and to some brick yard ponds a couple of miles away to go fishing. I will say, if you have money you want to spend on your boat, unless it's something to make things easier, don't. Anything you spend on the boat is money thrown away, it's most likely not going to add any value to that old of a boat. The boat itself is only to get you to where the fish are at, it's not going to do one thing to help improve your catching fish. In over 60 years of fishing from a boat, I've never had the boat catch but one fish. I've had one jump in the boat when it got spooked. A good trolling motor can make life a little easier while on the water, and good electronics can help locate the fish better. Good tackle makes fishing more pleasant so if you have money you want to spend, spend it in those areas. The main thing you need to upgrade, money won't buy, and that's the big knot sitting on top of your shoulders. It takes a lot of homework and time on the water to upgrade that.

Age have very little to do with it. How it was rigged, maintained and stored are the critical factors. Back about 2,000 a dealer offered me a great deal on the three-year-old 19' Sprint bass boat with no motor. The owner had upgraded boats and put the motor on the new hull. Knowing a little bit about them, I noticed there was no signs of Silicon sealant that's used to seal the bolts, stuck to the back of the hull and looking in the bolt holes, they were black inside. Soooo, I stuck a 1/2 bolt with large washers on both sides with a nut on it and started tightening them down. On a good wood transom, it should barely pull into the glass surface. On this one, after the inside washer got about a 1/4" deep, and still not real tight, I asked him how much he was going to give me to haul it off for him. The thing about buying older boat is knowing what to look for and how to check them, and know how the boat was stored. If it was one of those you see sitting out, uncovered, after that long, it's probably junk. A good indication of that is what kind of shape the gel coat is in. Then there's the motor. It's critical to do a leak-down test on it and see what kind of oil he ran in it. If it was that cheap stuff, (which wears a motor a lot worse and creates mover carbon build up), that's a good indication he probably didn't spend the money to properly maintain it either. If it's valued at $7,000, and that's what he's asking, it had better be good, well maintained condition. That leaves no room to repair problems you will find once you get it. A new water pump can cost you several hundred dollars, which I always replace on any motor I buy. If it's been sitting, carbs or FI can run several hundreds to rebuild. If you take it to a dealer and have him go through the stuff that should be done every couple of years, you are probably looking at $700 to $1,000 minimum. Now, if you are like me and can fix anything about one yourself, you might not need that buyers cushion in the price. However, that is still no guarantee. I probably know boats and motors as well as anyone on this planet, add because of my confidence in being able to repair any problem, I've still been burned on a couple. Like checking a motor and see low compression on a couple of cylinders, normally less than $1,000 for me. However, pull it down and find the block and crank is bad also, which makes it a junk motor. That's $1,000 repair just turned into a several thousand-dollar repair.