Posts: 3480
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
If you stay with the same prop pitch and diameter you have, I would bet your hole-shot will be slower....the reason: Your motor will be working harder to turn the prop. Granted, you are not dropping much, but when you hit the throttle, your motor is turning 1.87 times faster than the prop shaft is rather than 2 times faster than the prop. So...you will have lower RPM's across the entire throttle range with the same prop. Much of this is also dependent on your load, but overall, when you go down with the first number in gear ratio, your motor will have to work harder to turn the prop...
You might get lucky and not see anything significant, and depending on the load in your boat, you may see a slight increase, although I feel you might see a decrease overall.
Tough call, but if the lower unit fits, you shouldn't hurt anything at all mechanically..
Steve
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