1988 starcraft 19ft bass boat

[Mike Hall]

I picked up this boat last week mainly for the engine but, the boat is very solid and fairly clean so I am going to just get it setup and maybe fish out of it for a bit before selling it. The boat has a 1988 Merc 200hp which seems to be in good shape with good compression numbers. The prop that is on the boat is a 25p light speed 3 blade prob by quicksilver and its in perfect condition. The boat does have a manual jack plate and at the moment the motor is dropped about all the way down. There is no low water pickup on the lower unit so i suspect it will have to ride low to keep water pressure up. What kind of speeds did these boats approach? I sure would like to installed a bobs nose cone so i can get the motor out of the water a bit but maybe its not worth it if this is really not that fast of a boat. My last boat was a 80mph Back country pro guide 201 flats boat with a 250xs, I have no expectations to seeing this starcraft hit that but it would sure be nice to get in the 70s. I have not been able to find any details on setup or even an idea on speeds these boats ran. The hull is the same as the laser 380 from what I understand but i can not find any setup details for that boat either. Any ideas on where to start with this boat would be great.

Thanks
Mike

[Mike Hall]

Took the boat out for the first time today. It was a very short trip to test it out. I found out the trim for sure has something wrong as it will not hold the motor in trim at all under anything other than idling along. The boat also must have a live well hose or something not hooked up as when i got back and loaded the boat up it was nearly full of water. Crazy thing is the boat rides high in the water obviously even when about full of water. I did not have but a little fuel on board so i only made a few short runs which were flawed by the trim issues and of course who knows how much weight in water on board. I was able to get 57mph GPS but I know for a fact I could have pushed it a lot harder. My daughter was on board and when it starts chine walking I back off not knowing how the boat handles yet. I thought it was odd that is was walking at only 57mph where as my back country didnt start until mid 70s. I guess this boat has a lot of lift and gets on up out of the water at slower speeds or something. I am going to have to address the trim issue which seems to be something of the nature like air in the system???? The trim cylinder is very springy and not solid at all. Will open for suggestions on what height to run this motor, am learning toward getting a bobs nose cone kit just to have low water pickup but is that something this boat would benefit from? Any feedback would be fantastic.

[pmgoffjr]

Nose cone will slow you down. Fact.
Get everything working, trim, steering good and tight, nothing springing out or surprising. Hull looks like an old Lazer, it should run decently, but I don't think it's ever going to get much past 70 with a 2.5 deuce on it.

[Mike Hall]

Yep its a laser hull. I was reading about the Laser 380 which was hitting 90 with a 260 and a few reporting approaching 80s with 200. I would think those boats are built way lighter and they have less drag on the top deck so maybe 70 may be a long shot but it would be sweet to hit that mark.

[pmgoffjr]

I have setup a few lazers, I owned a LTV back in the 80's, it was a bad dog hull back in the day, mid 90's with a 2.6 XP, right up until I blew it over.
The 380 can really really run hard, but it's going to be weight sensitive to find it's potential.

[90 5.0]

Nose cone will slow you down. Fact.
Get everything working, trim, steering good and tight, nothing springing out or surprising. Hull looks like an old Lazer, it should run decently, but I don't think it's ever going to get much past 70 with a 2.5 deuce on it.

Look at the clamp bracket, it's not an 2.5 200.

[pmgoffjr]

I just saw the rite hite plate.
Owner is pretty jazzed on the boat, so never want to call anyone's baby ugly.
Lazer is a quick hull but that quickness comes with a price. Roark Summerford knew his stuff but if you're wanting an 80 mph lazer you're going to need to be an A+ quality boat driver. I'll leave it at that.

[Mike Hall]

Its not a 2.5 its a 1988 2.4 200. As far as the trim yes it is not off the the 88 its actually a 1982 XR2 150 trim setup. After i got the boat home i looked up the numbers and found that the tilt was not the same as the motor itself. Whatever the case the motor runs great so far and had 118-120 on all cylinders so its still fairly tight. I have a Powerlift jack plate that I could install but i was saving it for my skater 18 project. I may put the jack plate on just to find the sweet spot. Looks like with a 200 and some setup testing a laser 380 had some pretty solid performance according to this guy > http://www.screamandfly.com/showthre...next-laser-380

[90 5.0]

I wasn't hating on the boat I love old school stuff, I have one of the early 80's 2.4 200's with the old style clamp bracket hanging in the shop right now.

And to the OP like I said on scream there is no such thing as an 82 Xr-2 150, I have an Xr-2 150 my dad bought it new. I know a little bit about them ;)

[Mike Hall]

I am not sure why but one of the boat parts website listed the swivel bracket serial number as from a 1982 merc XR2 150. let me go look again. Here is the link loaded with the serial off the swivel bracket. > https://www.marineengine.com/parts/m...rts/sn/6009546

No big deal, I just need to figure out what is wrong with the trim system. I would rather swap everything over to a newer setup with pump and all mounted by the ram cylinder but, I dont want to dump a lot in this boat at the moment. I only have $1100 in the boat as it sits so you can hate on it all you want. haha I think if i can hit 70mph and have less than $1500 in the boat including a dang nice trailer I did well.

[Ashton.r]

damnnn I'm glad to see another starcraft set up on here. is your model rated at 200hp? i have a starcraft 1800 stalker rated at 150, barely find info on it, do you know if it would be the same hull as yours? seems to be the same layout i just got dual consoles. I run about 60 GPS with a black max 150, 23p aluminum prop, I had a stainless on there and ran 65 gps without fine tunning the jack plate height. took the stainless off i run some rocky Canadian shield lakes