Hi All,
I have a 1995 Blue Water Monte Carlo (20') with a 350 Mag and A1G2. We've owned the boat for 3 summers now and have loved every minute of it. It has been a great boat and extremely reliable. Runs like a top. Aside from annual maintenance we've never had to touch it. I've been experimenting with props and just last night noticed that the ratio on my outdrive is 1.84. If I'm not mistaken, this was the norm for the 4.3L in this era, but nowhere near the norm for the 350 Mag. I don't even think the 1.84 was recommended for High Altitude applications with this engine. I compared S/N's to the info tag on the cowling of the motor. It looks to me like everything is factory. The S/N for the outdrive is worn off the cowling on the top of the engine so I can't read it 100% but from everything I can make out I'm pretty sure the outdrive S/N matches as well. So my questions is......... can anybody make any sense of this? The boat is fairly heavy but it hauls serious a** with this setup. I know that the boat was available from the factory with the 4.3, 5.0 and 5.7. I was trying out a 23" 3 Blade SS prop. With a full tank of fuel and a ton of gear I could hit the rev limiter with ease and still had a good amount of throttle left to play with. I was surprised that this boat was capable of spinning such a high pitched prop which is what brought me to confirming the outdrive ratio in the first place. I've figured out where I need to be for props so that's not what I'm here to rant about. I'm more curious as to whether or not anybody else has come across this ratio on a 350 Mag as a factory setup before. Should I be worried at all? I understand what this means in regards to prop pitch. Are there any other issues one should be worried about? Like I mentioned earlier, I've had no issues with this boat which is why it has taken me so long to discover this. I've spent a lot of time around high performance boats with outboards, but am rather ignorant when it comes to I/O outdrives. My wife wouldn't let me buy the Skater 24 w/ Twin 2.5L Diamond Builds that I really wanted, so this is the boat we ended up with to get our new family into boating.
Thanks in advance for all responses.
I have a 1995 Blue Water Monte Carlo (20') with a 350 Mag and A1G2. We've owned the boat for 3 summers now and have loved every minute of it. It has been a great boat and extremely reliable. Runs like a top. Aside from annual maintenance we've never had to touch it. I've been experimenting with props and just last night noticed that the ratio on my outdrive is 1.84. If I'm not mistaken, this was the norm for the 4.3L in this era, but nowhere near the norm for the 350 Mag. I don't even think the 1.84 was recommended for High Altitude applications with this engine. I compared S/N's to the info tag on the cowling of the motor. It looks to me like everything is factory. The S/N for the outdrive is worn off the cowling on the top of the engine so I can't read it 100% but from everything I can make out I'm pretty sure the outdrive S/N matches as well. So my questions is......... can anybody make any sense of this? The boat is fairly heavy but it hauls serious a** with this setup. I know that the boat was available from the factory with the 4.3, 5.0 and 5.7. I was trying out a 23" 3 Blade SS prop. With a full tank of fuel and a ton of gear I could hit the rev limiter with ease and still had a good amount of throttle left to play with. I was surprised that this boat was capable of spinning such a high pitched prop which is what brought me to confirming the outdrive ratio in the first place. I've figured out where I need to be for props so that's not what I'm here to rant about. I'm more curious as to whether or not anybody else has come across this ratio on a 350 Mag as a factory setup before. Should I be worried at all? I understand what this means in regards to prop pitch. Are there any other issues one should be worried about? Like I mentioned earlier, I've had no issues with this boat which is why it has taken me so long to discover this. I've spent a lot of time around high performance boats with outboards, but am rather ignorant when it comes to I/O outdrives. My wife wouldn't let me buy the Skater 24 w/ Twin 2.5L Diamond Builds that I really wanted, so this is the boat we ended up with to get our new family into boating.
Thanks in advance for all responses.