Fastbass Marine TV - Mercury Racing 300XS vs 300R

[River Rocket]

Super excited. I just finished this comparison video. I hope to have it up tomorrow. Lot's of back story, so I'm probably going to get wordy. Obviously it can't be apples to apples or back to back testing, but the data is pretty solid.

At the last minute I added in a modified version of the gear case test we just posted to show the 300XS DBR 1.75 against the 300R 1.75. It ends up being a 300XS 1.62 vs. 300XS DBR 1.62 vs. 300XS DBR 1.75 vs. 300R 1.75. I hadn't really looked at this before. It was really neat to see how they all stacked up.

[280ssStroker]

[River Rocket]

Finally done....

I went way back to my data logs and honestly found it challenging. I really have two props that I have run with all the different setups I have had. It's either the 30 Promax or the 32 P4. I used both.

Complicating the comparison is that the 300R is running a 1.75 case and the 300XS had a 1.62. To get around this I made 3 different comparisons on the first test. The first is from an idle or the 5-100mph test. The R should and did clean house here. The second is 30-100mph, this starts to pull the gear case out of the picture. The third is 50-100. At 50mph the other testing I did on the 300XS 1.62 vs 1.75 showed the 1.62 case was turning on and out pulling the 1.75 on the 300XS powerband.

Stock 300XS
I had to cut the speed off at 100mph for this test series. Getting one top speed pull that started from an idle was a pain and took a lot of attempts. The stock XS labored to get the 32 P4 out fast. The boat did 101 with the stock XS and that took some serious time to hit. It was really a 98/99 mph boat.

DBR 300XS
The DBR made this test possible for the XS. On most days the boat easily hit 100 when it was in the 60's. The lightened flywheel helped the boat get out much better and you could see the midrange and top end was improved as well. The best top speed for the 300XS DBR was 103.2. The DBR was only run in the fall conditions, so despite being slightly heavier it had cool weather for testing vs. the R that had warmer temps.

Unfortunately, Jay hogged the P4 during the gear case testing and I never ran it with the DBR 300XS and 1.75's. If I had to guess it would have hit 100 on top. I did run my 34 P3 on the 1.75 case test. The P3 was a 101/102 wheel with the 1.62 case on the 300XS DBR and it was stuck at 97/98 during the 1.75 case test. The P4 was always 1-2mph faster when tested head to head. I would estimate the P4 with 1.75’s would have cut the distance gap in half, but would have capped out at 100mph. While the R with 1.75’s is going to blow right by 100.

300R
I'm all over the place on this one. I honestly really struggled with the R early on. In hindsight, that was probably break in and summer heat. I changed a ton of stuff vs the DBR, but on the positive side the boat very closely matches the original stock 300XS boat before Power Poles or added setback. The two are very close to true head to head stock 300's from a comparison perspective. Again, the reason for the 50-100 test is to negate the down sides of the DBR setup and compensate for the 1.62 case. Holeshot is completely removed. At that point the Power Poles really mean nothing. They are just dead weight because they are folded and out of the wind. The battery testing shows that dead weight in the butt has very little impact on my boat if you take away the holeshot.

So with all the changes, I still think this is a solid comparison. It's the same boat and the same prop. I really can't see how this would be done on a working man’s budget any better. I would have loved to see it all done back to back to back, but the feasibility of that is unlikely.

Simply put, the R has changed the performance of my boat beyond my expectations and it hasn't got to run in the temps yet that set the high points for the other motors. Wait until it's 35-40 and the helmet comes on. The stock 300XS struggled to hit 100 before I added a lot of setback. After the setback it would occasionally hit 100. The DBR 300XS was a 100-101 boat day in and day out. The R bangs away at 103-105 and is asking for more.

THIS IS ALL LOADED TO FISH. None of these numbers are without the boat ready to fish a tournament with 10-15 gallons of gas except the DBR, I used low gas numbers to offset some of the weight of the poles.

[K-DAWG]

As always out standing test!!! Love it keep them coming!

[River Rocket]

Thanks Randy. I'm running out of stuff to test on my boat. I hope to get Jay and the 2+2 300R on video a lot this winter. I have a few new camera's that will really show side by side testing well.

[NOTGSXR]

Awesome as always!

[crank68]

Very nice !!

[fishnfireman]

As always (amazing)
If you run out of idea's for the 300's I have a 250R

[mittenbass]

The 3000’ finish line graphic is awesome. Cool idea.

[jjbraud]