Posts: 3508
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
First off, where is the motor mounted (what holes are the bolts in on the motor)? Most boats when they are rigged are set up with the motor either flat on the transom or mounted one hole up off the transom. This allows for good overall handling and satisfactory speed, but is by far the optimum set up for the rig. As soon as you start playing with steel props and you find one that works well for you, you can play with motor height a bit to get a touch more out of it.
In your case, you have a great prop on the boat currently, and the tweaks to get more out of it don't cost you a dime..only some time.
In most cases with a prop such as yours, you can move the motor up a couple of holes without any major loss in handling. You will increase the amount of slip in the prop, but you will also gain some top end speed as well. Roughly every inch you move the motor up or down equates to about 100 RPM in the same manner. Go up, gain...go down, lose...
If you can get back to me on that, I can walk you through what you can try a bit more...
Steve |
