As most know I have struggled to get the new R to run with my old 300XS DBR. In all the testing I have done it has always come down to hole shot. The motor pulls just as well from 15-top, it just loses it in the hole shot. Unlike the XS it doesn't bog, but instead goes nose high then comes down after climbing a wall of water (and I have wedges). This rise takes time and as a result when compared to the 300XS DBR the 300R gets to speed slower in the 5-XX comparison and in the time to a given distance.
On my boat it is stern weight. The added motor weight made a difference. Jay is seeing this as well on his 2+2 300R. I decided to test other configurations to see if I could improve the holeshot.
For this test I made battery trays for the nose of the boat. My boat had two sets of trolling motor cables so I re-purposed one set and ended it in the bow. I did some jumpering and added a second breaker so I could switch batteries locations on the water and still fish. I also added cables so I could move the starting battery to the nose as well. Now that I have a lithium troller I can either run all my batteries in the nose or everything in the rear or a mix. The plates and additional wiring weights 10lbs. I took it a little far......
This test shows back to back testing of a 28 Promax with forward and aft battery placement. I made one pass with 130lbs of batteries in the nose and followed that up with one pass with the batteries in the back of the boat. I used a 28 because it hits the limiter fast and it would be easy to see how battery placement impacted 5-85 times, time to distance, and closing speed.
Despite the small pitch the results were the same with every prop I own. Bow mounted batteries had a slower top speed by 1-3mph depending on the day. Bow mounted batteries always got out of the hole faster. Bow mounted batteries always made the boat feel less responsive and loose (this can be seen in the slower acceleration curve after 50mph). The higher the pitch the longer it takes for the aft located batteries to catch the bow batteries. With the 30 Promax it happened fairly quick and the 32 promax took over 1/2 mile to catch up. Having the batteries in the nose allowed me to run a 32p on tournament days with a full live well vs. a 28 with the batteries in the back.
I will say that I was surprised that all the props I own still carried the weight fine and could pull awesome speeds despite the 140lbs of added weight in the nose. After this test it was clear to me that lithium was the answer. I have the lithium testing and video done. I will put it out soon.
These boats are super impressive with all that weight in the nose.