Performance upgrades

[Germaine Marine]

I listed the props i've used. I think i covered boths ends of the extreme, from fast cruising, but wont surf to great surf but wont cruise. I'm kind of in the middle now. Is there a prop you would like me to try? Believe me, I'd much rather buy another prop than a supercharger!

I really don't know what you mean by saying "you can get the hull beyond what any power will fix". Do you mean I have too much ballast for the hull? If so a 15x11 prop proves that wrong. That prop will push this weight in this hull with the power I have just fine. Worked for Dakota too.

The 15x11 doesent prove anything wrong. Just because the prop you run is geared low enough to push a barge through the water at surf speed doesent mean the hull isnt overweighted and displaying the characteristics as such. A surf RPM of 4500-5k is really all the evidence you need. You can prop anything low enough to push through the water plowing at 10-11mph. There is a big difference between forcing a hull through the water that wont plane at surf speed vs the boat pushing over onto plane at surf speed. Big big difference. Maybe your boat is planing fine, not sure. But the numbers dont jive.

We are going to differ in opinions here so... but dakota was 1k lbs lighter, surfed at a really nice RPM, and didnt have any of the hull characteristics you are getting. Is the elevation a factor? Absolutely, but the bigger factor is you are running around with 5k lbs in a boat at 5k feet that isnt known to be the most efficient big boat through the water. The boat is so heavy its spinning that prop out of the water at a tune of turning 4500---5k RPM at surf speed. I mean, seriously. Short of hammering the throttle down at takeoff and forcing the boat into that type of orientation which is absolutely possible and actually super common, I tend to think you are either over weighted, not weighted correctly or the motor is hurt. Ill stand by that until you slap a blower on it and we see the diff. Thats just a whole lot of what iff to spend what? 10K? and at what expense efficiency wise? 15GPH?

[UNSTUCK]

So many variables... and you said you exhausted all prop options so i won’t even rehash that.

The extra power is Amazing , however. Sometimes you can get the hull beyond what any power will fix which is what mike and I subsequently have been trying to say.

My concern with your situation is that it seems like you are far off on one side of the equation.

Will the said blower Hp fix it? I don’t know but it seems like from what you are describing that we are talking about a big margin to overcome.

I listed the props i've used. I think i covered boths ends of the extreme, from fast cruising, but wont surf to great surf but wont cruise. I'm kind of in the middle now. Is there a prop you would like me to try? Believe me, I'd much rather buy another prop than a supercharger!

I really don't know what you mean by saying "you can get the hull beyond what any power will fix". Do you mean I have too much ballast for the hull? If so a 15x11 prop proves that wrong. That prop will push this weight in this hull with the power I have just fine. Worked for Dakota too.

Powell with a big flat wheel would probably not be a good time. The 2419 has been our go to lately so Id say you are right in there. Anything is possible with enough time and money. I guess the question to me is how happy are you with the boat as is, minus your gripe with power?? At what point are you winning I guess, if you go the boosted route?? Seems like unless you are really hooked on your boat it wouldn't be worth pouring 6k into a motor. Take your 6k that you wanted to spend and then add that to the sold price of your boat and I bet it equals a big ol down payment. Especially since you've previously stated that you like the performance in the newer Indmar package. If you aren't happy with the boat your in, you probably will never be no matter how much $ your pour into it. Unless I'm "missing the boat" and you love the boat a ton.

We love the boat. We paid $55k for it last spring. We have been in a few different boats since then and they are all just small compared to ours. We looked real hard at that 2016 RZX you have for sale. Wouldn't have even considered it without the supercharger. But its over $100k! Jason has pushed a few RZX boats our way. $105-115k. Most have the 2:1 tranny which makes up for not having the supercharger. The Moomba Max was boring and smaller for $75k, and they wont customize it at all. The 2017 SE550 was AWESOME with a supercharger...and $117k. A taps 3 Z3 or R23 is smaller still and are at least $70k.
So sell a boat we are very happy with overall just to spend twice as much on a boat that will make us happy and sad in other ways? I can afford the payment on any of these boats. But just because I can doesn't mean I should. At this point I feel like spending $10k on a charger and slappers is a wise move. Stock 409 F24's are still listing for $65k in my area. Hard to believe I would take too much of a bath on these upgrades if I sold a year later. Certainly no more loss then if I was to buy any 2017 boat this year and sell it a year later.

Again... so many variables. Someone at acme told you just to leave the standard cupping so you can return them? Whoever told you that is a goon. That’s a cost saving option not the correct one.

While increasing cup .40 thousands is equivalent to a 1 inch change in pitch.. the change in upper end etc and how the power comes on is where the difference is felt..

Put a blower on it.. it’s what you want to do and have made your mind up on being the solution. I would go that route.

You can't really blame me for taking the Acme's guys word for it, right? I mean he should know? Why don't you pick a prop for me and tell me what to do with it. You know what I want. Think you can get my boat to do that with just a prop? At best I bet I won't see more then 2-300 RPM change while pulling the weight or while cruising. Still too high for me.



Thanks for the ideas and help guys.

[Germaine Marine]

Again... so many variables. Someone at acme told you just to leave the standard cupping so you can return them? Whoever told you that is a goon. That’s a cost saving option not the correct one.

While increasing cup .40 thousands is equivalent to a 1 inch change in pitch.. the change in upper end etc and how the power comes on is where the difference is felt..

Put a blower on it.. it’s what you want to do and have made your mind up on being the solution. I would go that route.


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[dakota4ce]

Cup is a slightly different adjustment than pitch though—like I said it kind of simulates a higher pitch, but in my case it was exactly the adjustment that was needed. The equivalent pitched prop did not work for me, but the cupping did the trick.


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[freeheel4life]

This isn't the issue. The boat will plain out just fine and will cruise great when completely unloaded of ballast and while running a 1235 prop. And it will surf at 12mph with 5000 pounds of ballast just fine (despite high rpm's) with a 2937 prop. The hull shape isn't causing me problems, other than just being a BIG boat.



I spent a lot of time with acme going over cup adjustment options and we concluded to stick with the available options to make returning props easier. And like you said adding a bunch of cup basically just takes it to the next pitch size.



My home town lake (Willard Bay - 4200') is very small. You don't cruise it. We fill up the three bags to surf and play with the hard tanks to see what happens that day. Usually the tanks are empty to surf. If we need to return to the dock while surfing we do our best to get over there. Never more than a mile or two. We leave the bags full and make sure the tanks are emptying as we go. Once we are finished surfing and pull out the tubes to play on we drain everything. With the prop we have on now (2419) we can tube at 21 mph at a much nicer rpm. Like maybe 4500 if I recall. Still too high though. In the example above when we were at Powell this summer we had one of the tracktor props on and trying to cruise the lake with no ballast at all was brutal, to be expected though. The 2419 is the total compromise prop. It can't pull full surf ballast, but does more than half. It will also cruise better than what we had. No matter what prop, I would need to get used to running above 4000 rpm's all the time. I'm not happy with that.

Powell with a big flat wheel would probably not be a good time. The 2419 has been our go to lately so Id say you are right in there. Anything is possible with enough time and money. I guess the question to me is how happy are you with the boat as is, minus your gripe with power?? At what point are you winning I guess, if you go the boosted route?? Seems like unless you are really hooked on your boat it wouldn't be worth pouring 6k into a motor. Take your 6k that you wanted to spend and then add that to the sold price of your boat and I bet it equals a big ol down payment. Especially since you've previously stated that you like the performance in the newer Indmar package. If you aren't happy with the boat your in, you probably will never be no matter how much $ your pour into it. Unless I'm "missing the boat" and you love the boat a ton.

[UNSTUCK]

With enough weight and attitude, a hull will never plan or perform as desired.

This isn't the issue. The boat will plain out just fine and will cruise great when completely unloaded of ballast and while running a 1235 prop. And it will surf at 12mph with 5000 pounds of ballast just fine (despite high rpm's) with a 2937 prop. The hull shape isn't causing me problems, other than just being a BIG boat.

I had a cup adjustment on my prop to make it a bit taller and surfed right around 3900-4000. I cannot recall specifically what we did—might be able to find it in old emails.

And I basically never go over 25mph but I don’t recall that being a problem or excessively high rpm.

I do recall the cup adjusted prop being much better than the stock cup. If memory serves me we took it to .150 cup from .75? Which -sorta- makes it like a 15x12 in a slightly different way.

That is all a guess, I would have to look back to attempt to confirm.

I spent a lot of time with acme going over cup adjustment options and we concluded to stick with the available options to make returning props easier. And like you said adding a bunch of cup basically just takes it to the next pitch size.

So IF I am understanding you, you are keeping your bags full and your throwover 750 full, only dumping the tanks for a quick scoot?? So you have 2200 in the rear + 750 in a throwover?? Plus crew?? Total 3k+ and then not happy with cruising speed?? You want to smash around the lake in a 24' with that much weight then yeah, you need a few more ponies. Or you could just hit the empty switch. I could be missing something though.

My home town lake (Willard Bay - 4200') is very small. You don't cruise it. We fill up the three bags to surf and play with the hard tanks to see what happens that day. Usually the tanks are empty to surf. If we need to return to the dock while surfing we do our best to get over there. Never more than a mile or two. We leave the bags full and make sure the tanks are emptying as we go. Once we are finished surfing and pull out the tubes to play on we drain everything. With the prop we have on now (2419) we can tube at 21 mph at a much nicer rpm. Like maybe 4500 if I recall. Still too high though. In the example above when we were at Powell this summer we had one of the tracktor props on and trying to cruise the lake with no ballast at all was brutal, to be expected though. The 2419 is the total compromise prop. It can't pull full surf ballast, but does more than half. It will also cruise better than what we had. No matter what prop, I would need to get used to running above 4000 rpm's all the time. I'm not happy with that.

[Germaine Marine]

So many variables... and you said you exhausted all prop options so i won’t even rehash that.

You want a blower and that’s awesome. The extra power is
Amazing , however. Sometimes you can get the hull beyond what any power will fix which is what mike and I subsequently have been trying to say. That power is only as good as the wheel you are going to use to efficiently transfer that said power to the water.

If the boat won’t plane with a crazy prop, then to me you have one of two issues.

1. The boat is incorrectly weighted
2 The Motor is hurt

My concern with your situation is that it seems like you are far off on one side of the equation.

Will the said blower Hp fix it? I don’t know but it seems like from what you are describing that we are talking about a big margin to overcome.

Yes the blower is nice... but let me tell you have had every current indmar package and trans.

When you stick weight too then especially the amount of weight you are using which inhibits the boar from planning correctly... their isn’t a blower out that will fix it.






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[dakota4ce]

With the 15x11 my boat surfed perfect with full weight. I did not like that I was doing that at 4500rpm. I assume your boat was running the same engine speed? And it would have cruised at the same speeds as mine does, as well. Right now I only surf with the rear locker bags full, tanks empty to maybe half full and the bow bag could be full or empty depending on the day. So lately it's been nowhere near full weight. Slappers and charger are the plans this spring if we keep the boat.

I had a cup adjustment on my prop to make it a bit taller and surfed right around 3900-4000. I cannot recall specifically what we did—might be able to find it in old emails.

And I basically never go over 25mph but I don’t recall that being a problem or excessively high rpm.

I do recall the cup adjusted prop being much better than the stock cup. If memory serves me we took it to .150 cup from .75? Which -sorta- makes it like a 15x12 in a slightly different way.

That is all a guess, I would have to look back to attempt to confirm.


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[freeheel4life]

Doubt it. I usually dump the inboard tanks when I need to take off, ie dock run or something. My setup is like this: inboard tanks at rear, 1200 each. Bags in rear lockers, 1100 each. Bag sitting on top of bow seats, 750. Usually 4 adults, 5 kids in the boat.

During our test drive in Idaho last spring the boat quickly jumped to, if I remember right, 36 mph on the 1235 prop, so I know it can physically go faster than what I want (no ballast filled). I would think I could run that prop or something very similar with a supercharger and get the surf weight/speed I want as well. Best of both worlds.

So IF I am understanding you, you are keeping your bags full and your throwover 750 full, only dumping the tanks for a quick scoot?? So you have 2200 in the rear + 750 in a throwover?? Plus crew?? Total 3k+ and then not happy with cruising speed?? You want to smash around the lake in a 24' with that much weight then yeah, you need a few more ponies. Or you could just hit the empty switch. I could be missing something though.

EDIT- You also asked what supercharged RZX3 are running. You would really have to find out specifically props from guys that aren't running the 1 1/4" shaft (pre 2:1). Don't get to go play on big $ boats much so cant give you much beyond what they came propped with. We have a charged 16 RZX that's shrinkwrapped and stored in storage. I can try and check later and see what its propped with. All our other RZXs have been 2:1 and running 17" wheels

[chpthril]

Can you explain to me why a supercharger wouldn't get my boat going in the correct direction? I listed my props hoping you or someone could tell me where I went wrong. Again, how could an extra 100-150 HP not help?

These hulls are closer to a displacement (cruiser) hull then they are a planning hull. The hull will reach a point that no amount of engine power or prop or gear ratio, that will make it plan out.

With enough weight and attitude, a hull will never plan or perform as desired.

[UNSTUCK]

I have had the same exact boat—and something seems amiss. BUT: I have never run at 5000’.

But mine ran fine with a 15x11 IIRC at 1400’.

Personally? I would run a bit less weight than 5000 and install some slappers on this boat, assuming the motor is all good. The wave will be great!

With the 15x11 my boat surfed perfect with full weight. I did not like that I was doing that at 4500rpm. I assume your boat was running the same engine speed? And it would have cruised at the same speeds as mine does, as well. Right now I only surf with the rear locker bags full, tanks empty to maybe half full and the bow bag could be full or empty depending on the day. So lately it's been nowhere near full weight. Slappers and charger are the plans this spring if we keep the boat.

[UNSTUCK]

Unstuck, does your MB have the trim plate?? Are you running around with the ballast in?? I don't see why you shouldn't get 24-26 at around 3300-3500RPM unless theres something I'm missing about the weight of your boat un-ballasted. Unless you are always boating at the 5k mark you've mentioned. Even then I'm surprised to hear you describing basically a WOT scenario at cruising speed.

It has the trim plate and we run it in different positions based on what we are doing. It has to stay down while surfing or we have no chance at building any speed over 9 mph. Ballast was empty for the lake powell example noted earlier.

Seriously....5k rpm at 22MPH? Even a 12 pitch 2419 ran my Z3 at 30mph at 4200 RPM. Did you do any progressive RPM vs MPH testing? If so...let’s see the data. I see 5000 RPM AND 22 MPH and I start thinking there is something wrong with your engine or boat.

I did not record any data and I don't remember different speeds vs mph right off. The engine is fine and I doubt the tranny would allow 60 hours of slippage over last summer.

I’m sure your better at engines and boats than I, just throwing out some basics....

Prop key?
Secret stash of lead from prior owner?
Injectors clogged?
Compression check out?
Throwing any codes?
Non retracting surf system?

IDK...5K and 22MPH sounds like a loaded wake boat that has hit its performance limit. My buddy has a 24 foot Supra SSV with the 5.7 and it has great power. I just can’t see how your engine is working perfectly and your at 22 MPH, near WOT, in an unweighted boat. Unless of course you have extra ballast, something dragging or something slipping.

There is no prop slippage, no hidden ballast, engine runs great, and no surf system other than a suck gate.

Who has bashed you? I didnt see that. Definitely dont think as at all helpful. I just dont know of any performance upgrades that are going to steer your boat in the correct direction if thats what you are getting performance wise. Seriously.. I mean think about it. Your boat is really on one side of the extreme, so if you truly have cycled through all the correct props and are still on that side of the equation I question what a blower will really help. Josh are you sure that motor isnt hurt?

Noone has bashed me. Can you explain to me why a supercharger wouldn't get my boat going in the correct direction? I listed my props hoping you or someone could tell me where I went wrong. Again, how could an extra 100-150 HP not help? I have no reason to suspect my engine is damaged.

Whats super weird is the 6.0 builds more power down low compared to the new raptor power plants, and its by a long shot.

I will say this.... 5k is alot of weight man. I can count on my hand the guys running that weight and most are in 25-26 foot machines coupled with elevation. Can you get the boat to plane with that weight? Maybe the compromise is moving to more bow weight? Just spitballing...

I've looked all over for an L96 dyno chart from Indmar. Haven't found one yet. Your observation must be how it feels compared to a raptor. The raptor boats I've been in all feel stronger, but they have been smaller boats too. Not sure if I can get it to plain with full weight. Doubt it. I usually dump the inboard tanks when I need to take off, ie dock run or something. My setup is like this: inboard tanks at rear, 1200 each. Bags in rear lockers, 1100 each. Bag sitting on top of bow seats, 750. Usually 4 adults, 5 kids in the boat.

During our test drive in Idaho last spring the boat quickly jumped to, if I remember right, 36 mph on the 1235 prop, so I know it can physically go faster than what I want (no ballast filled). I would think I could run that prop or something very similar with a supercharger and get the surf weight/speed I want as well. Best of both worlds.

Anyone running a supercharged RZX3? What prop do you use?

[dakota4ce]

I have had the same exact boat—and something seems amiss. BUT: I have never run at 5000’.

But mine ran fine with a 15x11 IIRC at 1400’. I put the 15x10.5 on it (or x10?) and could have surfed with a cement truck in tow.

Again, 1400’ though.

Personally? I would run a bit less weight than 5000 and install some slappers on this boat, assuming the motor is all good. The wave will be great!


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[Germaine Marine]

To recap from an earlier post:



Can you imagine trying to get across Powell going only 22 at 5k? What would you consider to be a safe cruising engine speed? 3k? I'm ok doing it at a slow 22 mph, but I just can't be happy doing it at 5k rpm. Props, as you said, will not get me what I need. You can tweak cup all you want and it will totally change the prop, but you will never get more than a few hundred RPM change. At least I didn't.
Look what Tige is now doing. 2:1 transmissions and 17" props. That is one way of solving the problem. Also notice that the engines are only getting bigger too.

My prop list from last summer:
1st. 1235 Fast, good prop for listing stock ballast. No chance with 5000 lbs ballast.
2nd. 2937 SLOW, great prop for 5000 ballast. Our best surf prop. All around too high rpm for my comfort.
3rd. 2315 Dont really remember this one. Think it was still too high of RPM but wouldn't pull the full ballast.
4th. 2419 Good for about 3k lbs ballast. Usually around 3900 rpm surfing. Cruising still high and slow. We kept this one as the best compromise.

My goal is to surf at 5000 lbs ballast at under 4000 rpm and cruise in the upper 20's closer to 3000 rpm. The Supra SE 550 I tested in November blew me away at its power with that much ballast and LOW engine speeds, so I know it can be done.

Whats super weird is the 6.0 builds more power down low compared to the new raptor power plants, and its by a long shot.

I will say this.... 5k is alot of weight man. I can count on my hand the guys running that weight and most are in 25-26 foot machines coupled with elevation. Can you get the boat to plane with that weight? Maybe the compromise is moving to more bow weight? Just spitballing...

[Germaine Marine]

Unstuck, does your MB have the trim plate?? Are you running around with the ballast in?? I don't see why you shouldn't get 24-26 at around 3300-3500RPM unless theres something I'm missing about the weight of your boat un-ballasted. Unless you are always boating at the 5k mark you've mentioned. Even then I'm surprised to hear you describing basically a WOT scenario at cruising speed.

Something just seems way off in the weight department or the motor is hurt. That boat isnt that heavy.... and we have ran other boats with much more weight....