I posted this on the 4 Stroke Mercury board as well, but I thought this would be a good place as well. I have a 2000 Bumblebee 180 PRO VEE that I just put a new 175 pro xs 4s on it with a 23p fury. I have owned this boat since it was new and it had a 175 efi 2 stroke on it until it blew up with a 25 tempest. It used to run mid 60s at 5800 RPM loaded. It is an 18 foot boat and dry hull weight is 1050 pounds. It is at 2 1/2 inches PTP. I have 3 hours on it now and I just put the mercmonitor on it so I could get accurate data. Today I opened it up a few times and my peak speed was 61.3 at 5350 RPMs. I feel that it started chine walking 3 or 4 mph earlier than it used to and it was lifted out of the water earlier as well. I don't think it used to start walking bad until 63mph or so. I also had hydraulic steering put on it and that's taking some getting used to when it starts walking. It was a little rough and windy today so I'm going to try again on a calmer day, but I don't think it's going to get 500 RPM better. Do I need to play with engine height or a different prop?
*Edited to change PTP to 2 1/2 inches instead of 3 1/2. Im bad at math.