I've had my boat out twice now since I purchased it - at both mountains and sea level. It's equipped with a 3.0MPI/Alpha 1 and currently has a 3 blade Michigan Apollo XHS Stainless Prop that's 14-1/4x17. The thing will absolutely leap out of the water, but my top end is at about 31 via GPS if I keep it at 4,900 on the tach. If you bury the throttle it will push to an indicated 5,600 - far too high. The (newly replaced and non-matching, much to my chagrin) tach shows it idling at 1,100 which is also high, but the engine idle is 725RPM non-adjustable - given that the 3.0MPI is all electronic I'm inclined to think the tach is probably reading about 375RPM over.
I'm not going to be pulling many skiers out of the water - and I can always throw this prop back on if I need to. If I were to jump to the same prop but in a 21 pitch would that be going too far in the other direction should I have the boat loaded with several people? I'd like to bring my cruising speed up slightly, as well as get a little more top end - but I don't want it to fight hard for 20 seconds to plane with 600lb of people in the boat (properly distributed).
I'm not going to be pulling many skiers out of the water - and I can always throw this prop back on if I need to. If I were to jump to the same prop but in a 21 pitch would that be going too far in the other direction should I have the boat loaded with several people? I'd like to bring my cruising speed up slightly, as well as get a little more top end - but I don't want it to fight hard for 20 seconds to plane with 600lb of people in the boat (properly distributed).
