Prop change with great results

[Likesspace]

Hi guys....

Last year I decided to try to get better performance from our pontoon. The prop that came with the boat we purchased was beat to hell and needed to be replaced.

After running the Mercury Prop Selector several times I decided to go with a 14x10p Black Max prop with extra cupping for a pontoon application. The prop was certainly better than what we had but it was not without it's issues.

I bought a Tiny-tach that was setup for my particular application and I felt confident that the tach reading was correct. The problem is that the max rpm I was getting was 4850 with only myself and my wife on board. Once I added the entire family that reading dropped drastically.

Well today I installed a Quicksilver 14x9p with standard cupping that was suggested by the Mercury Prop Selector. Previously I had the selector choose the prop according to loaded weight but this time I gave the input of my current pitch prop, (10p) and my current rpm, (again 4850), and the suggestion came back with the Quicksilver 14x9. This is supposed to be the most accurate way of choosing a prop.

Well to make a long story short, this could not have been a better selection.
Today my wife and I went out and the motor was running better than it has since we've owned it.
Our max r.p.m. is a little over 6000 with just the two of us, (so I am a little under propped), and our max speed is a little over 17 mph. We did have a fairly strong wind tonight so it's possible that our speed will increase with just she and I aboard.

Tomorrow I'm taking the entire family out and seeing where the max rpm's fall. I'm confident that the motor will still be within it's sweet spot.

The four stroke Mercury has been a great motor for us but because it was being lugged it was exhibiting the problem of making a slight amount of oil. This has kept me from being confident in the motor and really enjoying the boating experience. I'm really hoping that this new prop is going to solve that problem.

My next step is to change the oil, (in case there has been fuel infiltration), and then step two consists of simply enjoying the rest of the year.

Wish me luck for the future......there's still a lot of summer left to enjoy.

Dave

[JLester273]

Nice. How long is your boat. I'm running a 75 on my 24 ft boat and get about 18-19 mph. So 17 out of a 50 seems great.

[Likesspace]

[quote="JLester273"]Nice. How long is your boat. I'm running a 75 on my 24 ft boat and get about 18-19 mph. So 17 out of a 50 seems great.[/quote]

We have a 20 foot long Bass Buggy. It's a pretty light boat and that no doubt helps. I'm pretty happy with the results and the sound of the motor tells me that it's happy without the lugging issue I had before.

[JLester273]

Well that explains it. I don't mind those speeds. But you had me wondering about mine. Does tell me I am probably pretty good at my setup. I do need to add a tach sometime.

I see a lot of newer pontoons trying to get what I would call extreme speed out of a pontoon. I guess I don't have the need for speed like they do.