Amen to what Fr. Frank and Terry said! "Light is Right" most definitely applies to these boats!
If you plan to run offshore very much, being able to plane at 12-13 mph is absolutely essential, and that means a 300 lb motor or less, which is what the boats were designed for! My boat would easily plane that slow with the old 300 lb 1975 115 Evinrude! Ran the boat for 31 years with that motor and boat was perfectly balanced with it.
I repowered with the 150 E-TEC in 2006 because I was tired of all the noise and smoke, and the 115 V-4 model was not yet in production at the time. With the big rearward shift in CG caused by the addition of the 30" bracket and 427# motor, my min planing speed increased to the low 20's! I was able to get it back down to 12-13 mph with some band-aids (adding a 4B stern lifting prop and a big SE Sport fin on AV plate), but the fin adds drag and a 4B prop typically gives up a little top end speed to a good 3B prop. The E-TEC has been a very efficient, quiet and reliable motor with very few problems in the 650 hrs and 11 years I've owned it, but it's 165 hp at the prop and way more power than the boat really needs, especially if you run offshore! I normally cruise at about 35-36% throttle at 25 kts and never use more than about 45% to get on plane even with a very heavy load!
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