What is the best outboard, Honda, Yamaha, Mercury?

[Outclaws]

Sounds like you know what you are talking about. Good advise. Thank you.

[eggsuckindog]

Gotta stay at least 150 to be happy, I do think the Johnson carbed motors are still availible and a good deal cheaper. That being said depending on your travel distance the $$ saved may buy alot of gas.

Glassman please create a thread after you test that prop as I'm interested in one as well.

[peterb]

Ken,

Maybe I am not following you here, but how can you run the engine with the cavitation plate so high? Under usual circumstances isn't it usually close to level with the bottom of the keel?

Are you able to do this because of your prop from outer space?

Peter

[NoBones]

Ken,

Maybe I am not following you here, but how can you run the engine with the cavitation plate so high? Under usual circumstances isn't it usually close to level with the bottom of the keel?

Are you able to do this because of your prop from outer space?

Peter

Peter, the norm is 1 inch above (prefered) to 1 inch below
the bottom of the hull. We squeezed it to prevent blow-out
Do not forget my tabs are 9 x 24 inch Bennett's.
The only thing in the water when I'm WOT is the tabs and the boat is chine walking, believe me it gets spooky.
The last thing I want to do is go end over end.
The "Bones" does best when there is a 2 ft chop on full plane. If you look at my T-Top my fabricator lowered the leading edge. Just to keep me from going airborne.
I was lucky enough to have been in a Marina situation in our old warehouse in Ormomd Beach for over 15 years.
I was surrounded by experts in Mercs and Aluminum fabriation. The old warehouse was 10,000 sq ft of nothing but rehabs on all types of boats. The old warehouse which was built in the late 40's had succumbed to dry wood termites and had to come down, hence the 5 acres I sit on now to house my collection of restored boats.


Which includes a 1964 16ft LoneStar, 1974 14ft Lucraft, 1977 15 Whaler, 20ft SeaCraft SF, and a 1969 12 ft Starcraft.


These 2 were the last redo's before demolition. Ken

[peterb]

Ken,

Thanks. As you probably know I have twin 200 Yamaha 0X66's on a 23 footer & full flotaiton bracket. Also, I have 12" x 12" Bennett tabs, each with two actuators. The boat came with SWS SS 21" pitch x 14 and 7/8 diameter props. At the sea trial the surveyor told me to move up the engines 1 to 2 notches, plus consider going to 19" pitch props.

The ride was not too good in the beginning. I pulled the boat out of the water and verified that the tabs were not working. I fixed them (low voltage on the fuse block). Also, I went to a 19" pitch x 15.25 diameter prop.

These two things made a big difference. The ride got a lot better. The only negative is that while the RPM's went up (from 5200 to 5400) the WOT went down from about 52 MPH to 50 MPH. Also, gas consumption got a little worse.

next thing I got greedy and raised the engines two notches. Seems to be at least one notch two much as I am spinning up water when i am on plane. I am going to throw on the old props and do a couple of other things before I move the engines back down either one or two notches.

Right now my cavitaiton plates are about 1.5 inches above the bottom of the hull (as they line up to the hull & not to the bottom of the keel). I thought that this would be fine as they are two feet behind the hull.

Just looking for answers & help.

Thanks

Peter

[doodlebug]

PeterB
Have you looked at your cavitation plates while running,
while running my plates are about 1 inch above the water
when i had the 200's on before the 250's i was seeing
56 mph and 5800rpm's you could still be to low.
but make shure you have someone trustworthy driving while you look

[dcobbett]

Hope to hang my new 130 Yamaha 2S on my 1976 20SF sometime soon and was planning on going by the suggestion Father posted some weeks ago as a starting point: extend the outer edges of the cav plate perpendicular to the transom and set the height of the plate at the point where those lines intersect the bottom of the hull. Pro's and con's comments to that approach?

[askipper3]

MERCURY BABY

[Ikan Besar]

MERCURY BABY

well that's good and scientific!.... Engines are looked at in different ways dependent upon where you are. Yami's are king in the Carolinas, OMC seems more popular up North than other places, Etc. Bottom line: most any engine will serve you well if you use it within the parameters it was designed for. I've had OMC, Yami, Tohatsu, Suzy, etc. Haven't had a single problem with any of them.

[Bushwacker]

I've compiled a couple of spreadsheets comparing specs on the new motors and some performance data from prop trials on my boat that I can send if you want to send me your e-mail address.