Prop for 18TRX

[itsahog]

Just takes time and 2.5-3” should be the sweet spot. Full WOT with the 23 should put you somewhere 5800-5900 and 68-70 mph. Just take your time and the handling will come to you a little more each time. Also if you are using Analog tach they can be way off. Mine reads 500 rpm too high. I take all my readings from vessel view mobile.

The only thing I have to monitor RPMs is the gauge on the console. I would really like to get this boat to handle like my old one did, basically WOT and full trim, could have let go of the steering wheel. That said, I can tell by the feel of this one it’s going to be freaking awesome. Just so I am certain, I am good to keep raising the motor as long as I have good water pressure and do not exceed recommended rpm’s, correct? I need to get a laser light so I am absolutely certain on the prop to pad configuration.

[thommo59]

Yes the water pressure is important, you don’t need a laser, just a long spirit level works great or even a nice straight edge. Have the cav plate and hull running parallel, trim the engine to get this. Hold the straight edge under the centre of the hull so it hits the leading edge of the gearbox and mark the gearbox with a marker.
Then measure from that mark to the centre of the cone on the gearbox, this is you PTP. You only need to do this once, record your measurement and let’s say it’s 3”.
Now, before you move the jackplate, mark that with a dot as well. From now on you simply raise the jackplate and can see how much by the dot.

[itsahog]

Yes the water pressure is important, you don’t need a laser, just a long spirit level works great or even a nice straight edge. Have the cav plate and hull running parallel, trim the engine to get this. Hold the straight edge under the centre of the hull so it hits the leading edge of the gearbox and mark the gearbox with a marker.
Then measure from that mark to the centre of the cone on the gearbox, this is you PTP. You only need to do this once, record your measurement and let’s say it’s 3”.
Now, before you move the jackplate, mark that with a dot as well. From now on you simply raise the jackplate and can see how much by the dot.

Thanks....what is your PTP set at and what prop are you running? Does your boat handle and preform well? Did you have to do anything to balance out your boat?

[itsahog]

I went through the procedure and raised my motor another quarter inch, this puts me at 2.75” below the pad. After raising it the first time I was sitting at 3 inches, probably from around 4.25 inches from the dealer. Weather has went South here so I won’t have it on the water today to check it, hopefully that quarter-inch will make a noticeable difference. Hopefully in a few days the weather will straighten out enough for me to take it for a ride.

[DaveTTN]

Just take your time. You need 10-15 hours on it to get the feel and get it dialed in. If you jump in it, floor it and trim up 100% you may struggle and get frustrated. I am at 2.5” and water pressure 25+ psi. If I go higher than 2.5” I lose speed.

[itsahog]

Just take your time. You need 10-15 hours on it to get the feel and get it dialed in. If you jump in it, floor it and trim up 100% you may struggle and get frustrated. I am at 2.5” and water pressure 25+ psi. If I go higher than 2.5” I lose speed.

thank you for continuing to help, it’s very reassuring to have somebody who has the same boat help me through this. Do you think the fact that the front end of my boat is basically empty makes a difference? I have yet to put all my gear in the boat so it’s probably a little light. I put some tackle and a toolbag In the back left compartment, it still seems to list to the right a little bit. I scooted over to the center and it seem to be perfectly level at that point. I see some people say fill the left side of the live well, but I don’t see how you can fill just one side, it’s one big live well with a divider but does not isolate from each side.

[DaveTTN]

Mine also lists to the right. Just put as much as you can on the left. Yeah I also have one large live well. You can buy gym weights in 25 pound increments and add to the left if you want. I didn’t need to on this boat but when I had a Bullet I had to do that. Each boat has it’s own personality, you’ll get it. Just don’t get frustrated if it takes a few trips. I would leave everything where it’s at for now until you get some time on it. You don’t want to change this and that every time you come back from the lake because you’ll just be chasing your tail. Also only change one thing at a time to see what a difference it makes. If you raise the motor, move all your gear, add weight to left, fill the gas tank, fill the livewells and then go run it you won’t know what did what.

[itsahog]

Sounds good, thank you for the advice. I won’t change anything until I see how it performs as it sits right now. Once I get the boat out next time I’ll report back and let you know what’s happening. Again very much appreciated.

[itsahog]

OK I took my boat out today, raised the prop two more times to pretty much maxed out my jack plate. My calculations would have me I would say pretty close to 2.5“ PTP. When I get a chance I’ll verify that. Today on the water it stayed pretty stable to about 62 mph, then I had to drive it pretty hard, the fastest I went was 67 miles an hour, that was at about 5600 RPM., water psi was solid still at 25 to 30. There was still trim to go, there’s no question this boat can easily touch 70 and beyond, I’m certain of that. My question is now, I guess I will have to raise the motor on the jack plate? There can’t be much room left to go up if I was close to the pad as I think I am. Every time I raise at the boat gets a little more stable, so I want to make sure I’m up as high as I can be. My question is, is it possible to have this boat do 66-68 miles an hour and not have to drive with the chine walk, or will that always be the case? I’m definitely learning how to drive with it, did much better today than I ever have. The ultimate would be to cruise wide open trimmed up with no chine walk to deal with, maybe that’s not possible?

[DaveTTN]

Any performance hull will have some level of chine that you will need to compensate for. Over time you won’t notice that you are doing what you need to do to keep it stable. I know for me once I make a change I need a couple times out to get the feel of what the change did unless it is blatantly obvious. To me, based on your posts, you seem a little quick to make changes before you have fully ran it to it’s full potential for what ever change you made. It sounds like you have the jack plate maxed out but were you able to go through the entire trim range at 100% full throttle and trim before raising it the two times? If not you could have passed the sweet spot.

[itsahog]

Any performance hull will have some level of chine that you will need to compensate for. Over time you won’t notice that you are doing what you need to do to keep it stable. I know for me once I make a change I need a couple times out to get the feel of what the change did unless it is blatantly obvious. To me, based on your posts, you seem a little quick to make changes before you have fully ran it to it’s full potential for what ever change you made. It sounds like you have the jack plate maxed out but were you able to go through the entire trim range at 100% full throttle and trim before raising it the two times? If not you could have passed the sweet spot.

based on my previous experience with my prior boat, I kept raising it because the boat becomes more stable each time. This was no exception, every time I raised the motor the boat became more stable. I was never able, and still have not been able to use full trim with full throttle. If I had the room I would still raise it a tad more. From what I understand until you lose water pressure, you should continue to raise it? Maybe I’m wrong. Just so you know, every time I raise the motor today, I spent at least an hour trying to achieve full throttle and full trim before raising it again. Each time I did, I gained.

[DaveTTN]

10-4. It is uncommon to see mph gains on these hulls above 2.5” prop to pad. On the 23 Tempest I have, during summer I ran it to 5850 RPM and 69.5 mph for reference. I haven’t ran it yet in cool weather. Best of luck and keep us posted.

[itsahog]

10-4. It is uncommon to see mph gains on these hulls above 2.5” prop to pad. On the 23 Tempest I have, during summer I ran it to 5850 RPM and 69.5 mph for reference. I haven’t ran it yet in cool weather. Best of luck and keep us posted.

Thanks Dave, I am just estimating the 2.5” PTP, but I know I have to be close. Tomorrow I will go to the boat and check to be precisely where I’m at. I am thinking I would be pretty close to where you were at considering I was at 5600 rpm’s and 66 mph. When you were at 5850 and 69.5 mph, did you experience chine walk? Tomorrow, when I level everything out and check I will let you know exactly where I’m at. Thanks again for all your input, its been extremely helpful.

[DaveTTN]

Any performance hull when running 65 mph or faster you will experience some level of chine walk if you don’t make the necessary steering wheel corrections. I have ran several different boat brands over the last 30 years. The fastest was a 21 XRD Bullet with a 300 XS Merc. That boat would run a solid 88 mph loaded to fish with two people. The hardest boat to drive I ever owned was a 377 Javelin with a 150 Evinrude Intruder and no hydraulic steering. That is actually the first “high performance” boat I ever had and how I learned to correct for chine walk. The easiest boat I ever owned to drive was a Skeeter but it would only run low 60s. They all have their own unique personality that you have to get a feel for. It just takes time in the seat.

[itsahog]

OK, I used a 4 foot level and I made sure the bottom V of my boat was perfectly level, and then I have a smaller level that sat on my Scagg and I made sure my motor was perfectly level. I carefully marked the motor, and I am right at 2.25 inches below pad. Obviously I’m not raising my motor anymore, so it appears I will get lucky and not have to move my motor on the jack plate because I’m quite certain it cannot come up any higher or at least it would serve no purpose. Would you agree with that? water pressure was still fine (25-30psi), so hopefully I’m safe leaving it where it’s at? Last question, I have all solid plugs in prop,I should leave them the way they are?

[Savage]

PVS plugs are for adjusting the holeshot, so only you can answer the question about adjusting the plugs.

[DaveTTN]

If you don’t run the solid plugs you’ll over spin on break over during hole shot.

[itsahog]

Thanks, it shoots all the hole basically instantly so I guess I’m good to go. I just did not know what else that might affect. Thx all

[Casslaw]

It sounds, after reading all of this, that your boat is set up pretty close to perfect right now. Seat time is the only thing that will teach you how to drive the boat at wot/full trim. Use the search here and look up chime walk. You will read many ways to learn to drive the boat and eliminate the walk, it’s all in how you drive.

One way way is to drive in a large, one mile, left handed circle. Start in a smaller circle and make it a little larger each time until you’re no longer circling. Learning to hold your hands with some left handed bias was the key for ME to learn to drive fast.

Thats not applicable now since my tin Triton doesn’t chine walk

[itsahog]

I got the boat out today finally. I noticed while looking at my jack plate that one side was all the way up, there was about a quarter of an inch room to go up on the other side, made me realize the motor possibly was not sitting level. I loosened up the jack plate, used a floor jack to put a little pressure on the motor, and pulled it up to where both sides were maxed out.I can’t believe I didn’t notice that, but I was just watching one side as I raise the jack plate prior, never had this issue with my other boat, this motor is a lot heavier. I also filled the gas tank up completely, and filled my live well. not sure if any of those things made a difference but the boat definitely was more stable, possibly I’m getting better at learning to drive the boat. In any case, I was able to drive the boat with little issue up to 62 miles an hour, and realized that I was full throttle and trimmed up pretty good and was driving 68.5 mph. RPMs were around 5600 and water pressure was 30 psi. so with a full tank of gas, full Livewell, and my 200 pounds, I’m pretty sure that boat will do 70 as it was still gaining speed. Anyway, if I can get comfortable driving it in the mid 60s I’m very happy.