which prop?

toolsinbox

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
187
I am in the process of gathering the parts to run a bravo setup on my 21 ft boat with 454 engine. I currently have alpha outdrive with 350 v8 gears in the drive. I was shocked at the price of gears and want to run things the way they are this season and get bravo done out for next year. Can I use prop pitch to help in off setting the incorrect gears? If so what pitch could I use? I just dont want to lay out a 1000 bucks just for a few weekends of boating. Aditionally I have a fresh engine that I have to break in so I will be babying the boat anyway.

Thanks for your suggestions.
 

hwsiii

Commander
Joined
Jan 25, 2009
Messages
2,639
Re: which prop?

Tools, welcome to Iboats prop forum and we will try to help you as much as we can, but there is certain information that is needed in order to help you. Working over the internet and not being able to see the boat or prop the question is about makes it much harder to propose a solution to the correct prop that you need, and most people don?t know the make and model of the prop . When we get information in bits and pieces we continually have to look back and forth to try and piece the information together. The following form has all of the information that is needed to help you with your problems in finding the right prop. If you do not know all of the information that is asked for on the form please give us the most information you have available as I have a program I designed to find the right prop for any planing hull boat that needs this information. It requires time to find all this information when we have to look for it and in my defense I expect you to be willing to expend as much effort in finding the right prop as I do. We hope to be able to help you get the best prop we can for your particular uses, and this information is required to do that. There are other people who can help you that don?t need this much information, if you would rather wait for them just don?t fill out the information I am requesting.
It is not as simple to pick the right prop as most people coming to this forum think it is, that is why we ask so many questions, it is for your benefit we ask all these questions. And if you have a stainless steel prop or are changing to one the blade geometry of the prop can make a lot of difference in speed and RPM. Most of my calculations are done assuming an aluminum 3 bladed prop will be used, when changing to a SS prop or changing within SS props we need to discuss what you are trying to accomplish.

Iboats Boat and Motor Info

1. Year, make and model of boat
2. Length, width and base weight of boat, look for boat decal on back of boat
3. Number of people and gallons of gas normally on boat
4. What do you use the boat for
5. Is it a Deep Vee and if so how many degrees of deadrise
6. Year, make and model of motor
7. HP and gear ratio of motor IMPORTANT
7A If you have a mercruiser and don?t know the ratio get your serial off the outdrive and go here http://www.sterndrives.com/mercruisersterndrives.html
8. Manufacturer?s recommended Wide Open Throttle (WOT) range
9. Anti-ventilation Plate height above keel of boat if it is an outboard in inches
10. Is it a bass boat or does it have a pad bottom
11. Does it have a hydrafoil or trim tabs
12. Make, model, diameter, pitch and whether SS or aluminum prop
13. WOT RPM and speed from your current prop and how much gas and how many people were in the boat for the test data and is the speed by GPS. If you do not have a tach you can buy a Tiny Tach for $ 50
14. Are you at sea level, or a much higher elevation
15. Has your motor been tuned up lately and have you checked that the carburetor butterfly is opening all the way, checked compression, and looked at the plugs and checked spark, all of the forgoing could be the reason your prop is not attaining full RPM
16. How long has this prop been on the boat and why, at this time, do you think it is the wrong prop
17. Does the prop show any damage that you can see
18. What problems are you trying to cure or what are you looking for the boat to do that it is not doing the way you think it should or to your expectations

REMEMBER, The numbers I give you will be NO better than the information you give me

The only thing I ask of you is to come back and give me a report of WOT RPM and speed for my database.

H
 

toolsinbox

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
187
Re: which prop?

21 ft scarab. 454 bbc alpha drive with 350 gears. 1.50 to 1. I use the boat for pleasure. A bit of tubing and just short crusing on small lakes.
 
Last edited:

MikDee

Banned
Joined
Jun 6, 2007
Messages
4,745
Re: which prop?

Hi, again what's your WOT (wide open throttle) rpm now with the prop you have? That's most important of what we need to know.
 
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