NEED SOME HELP TO MAKE MY BOAT GO FASTER!! pls help!

[jedimaster]

Are you ventilating at all? Losing water pressure? Chine walking? Are you even full up on the pad? Need a lot more details to help you out. The only thing about a jackplate on a smaller bass boat is the extra stress it places on the transom from the cantelever effect. Your transom may flex and have issues. Other than that the jack plate will give you a bit more stability and help you bridge waves a bit better.

[Jackie]

It doesnt porpoise much, I can get out of water without issue, might be a bit slow, but not much porpoise. I think the bow didn't get lift up enough... I can see that while running at high speed, the water splash was right beside where we were sitting or maybe just abit behind. I guess supposedly the splash should be even further back near the transom area?

[Jackie]

Oh and what do u mean by wedge the motor a bit?

[Jackie]

I don't have a water pressure gauge on the boat, but I will soon put one on before I Play with the jack plate. But I think the cooling was running fine during the last outting, water flowing out was warm and coming out freely for the whole day

Edited April 8, 2012 by Jackie

[jedimaster]

Yep, get a water pressure gauge. When tuning a boat you want to run the motor as high as possible so that you don't lose water presure, and can still get out of the hole. Alot of guys will plug the upper water intake holes so they don't lose water presure. This is because you will get less drag from the lower unit being in the water,

As for wedging the motor, thats more if you need help getting out of the hole. But to wedge it you can just insert some washers between the jack plate and motor mounton the bolts. On the bottom if you need more bow lift, on the top if you need less. You can also buy wedges that do the same thing.

 

If you are porpoising when your running WOT (WIDE OPEN THROTTLE) then you have too much trim. You can basically run wide open, then trim up til it porpoises, then back it down a bit til it stops and tip up a bit more. Thats as high out of the water your can run.

 

Try and get the motor up high but DO NOT do it unless you have a water pressure guage. A water pressure gauge is manditory when using jack plates.

I used to run a 12 inch jack plate on my 15 foot stratus and it made a huge difference in top speed stability.

 

If you have everything setup as well as you can and you still can't get to top rpms, you can try lowering the prop pitch by a degree. As was mentioned above you want your motor to max out rpm's so your motor isn't lugging. If you go too high in pitch you either won't get out of the water, or you don't have enough hp to push that much water.

 

There are some little things you can do like, getting a slightly smaller diameter prop, closing the prop vents(top end), adding vents(hole shot), move any weight as low as possible and as far back in the boat as possible. get a lighter trolling motor etc... there are alot of things you can do. It could be you have too much prop or just the wrong prop. Some boats run better with a lower pitch 4 or 5 blade. It depends if you need bow lift or transom lift. The cup a prop has can also make a difference.

[Jackie]

Woah! Thanks a bunch jedimaster for these useful info! I will sure get a water pressure gauge before I do anything else. Do u know if BPS sell them? And around how much should it be?

[Jackie]

Oh and what's the right psi for my motor to run in high speed? Or it varies between different settings?

[jedimaster]

It varies between motors, my friends evinrude, runs fine at like 6 psi. Best thing is to look up your motor specs. screamandfly is a great resource as is bassboatcentral. Most guys plug the top hole at least and run the motor up high enough to just barely not lose water presure. I mean your not gonna break and speed records, but you should be able to get into the low 50's. The real serious guys get into streamlining there lower unit with a nose cone and a waterpickup a the bottom of the lower unit instead of on the top.

 

Losing weight, moving the weight to the back all helps with top end. Moving the oil tank to the back, gas tanks, batteries etc... thats all to squeeze out an extra mph here an extra 1/2 mph there. Just try and follow the basics of boat performance. I'll try and offer whatever info I can but I think I have pretty much exhausted my brain power.

Oh yah, a big piece of advice when tweaking boats. Make one change at a time and test. What works on one boat may not work on another, if you make two changes you could get a 2 percent bonus with one and a 3 percent negative with the other and see a 1 percent loss but you actually could have gone up 2 percent.

[Jackie]

Haha yea that's a lot brain energy been used in providing these great info and advises. Really appreciate ur help! Thank you very much jedimaster! Now let's hope I can absorb all these info good enough to make everything work out soon!

[misfish]

Exactly ur 18 with 115 no jack plate is goin faster than my 16 with jack plate... That's why I'm not satisfy with the speed it's getting right now... A jack plate might not do much for a 16, but it wouldn't do any harm...would it?

 

Take the plate off and see what happens.You might get your answer.Just a thought.

[ecmilley]

well if your ever gonna fish sturgeon lake get hold of me, we can figure it out