89 Stratos 285 problems

oldschool71

Recruit
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
4
I am having a number of problems with my 285 pro. I am new to bass boats so some of my questions may seem a little silly but here goes. Background of the boat. 1989 Stratos 285 pro with an 89 Evinrude 175xp with a 13.5x25 Shooter prop. With myself and my buddy in the boat I am able to achieve 5,000 rpms. I have never been able to do better then the 5,000. I am not worried about speed but I believe that the boat should perform better then that. The hole shot is terrible. The motor has been to a shop and had the compression checked and the motor is healthy.

1. Shouldn't this motor turn about 5500 rpms?
2. The hole shot is terrible.
3. When running WOT the boat is very difficult to handle in turns. This may be my inexperience with a bass boat but it seems to want to slide through turns. I did have a scare with the boat one time where it actually turned extremely sharp and I almost was not able to straighten it out again.

After reading so much about the motors sitting too low in the water I raised the motor on the boat one hole so that it is now in the second to hole from the bottom. The pin that stops the motor from trimming down all of the way is in the very bottom hole so that the motor sits at a negative angle with regards to the transom of the boat. Raising the motor did seem to help with the hole shot. I did notice that with the motor raised one bolt hole I am now getting a small rooster tail that I did not get before. Another thing I have noticed it that I can trim my motor very high and it does not cavitate. Any help that you guys can give me will be greatly appreciated. I am just not sure where to start i.e. jackplate, prop???
 
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