should I get lower pitch?

I just recently bought a 1997 Rinker Captiva 232 open bow.

Had it out on the lake today with the wife and two kids along for the ride. She ran great, however the RPM's seemed a bit low.

The boat has a 5.7L mercrusier with an alpha one.

WOT rpms listed as 4400-4800. I could only get about 3950rpms out of her WOT, properly trimmed. Running at about 46mph.

Currently have a ballistic 14 1/4 x 23 SS prop that came with the boat.

Should I go for a lower pitch and gain some RPM? How would a lower pitch effect top speed?

My kids are too young for skiing/tubing, so the hole shot is not too important right now.

thanks

Re: should I get lower pitch?

On the surface it seems that yes, you'd benefit from lower pitch, probably all the way down to a 19 might be good. I'd guess you'd gain HUGE holeshot as well as some top speed. You're not even in the max powerband of your motor if you're running only 3950. Generally 23 sounds like a whole lotta pitch for a boat of your size and HP.

But it's hard to tell for sure without knowing your drive ratio. You may have an error in one of your data (inaccurate tach or speedo possibly). Drive ratio would tell us if one of your gauges is incorrect. What is your drive ratio?

And as always...."running great" is very non-objective. Your boat is 14 years old. When was it's last comprehensive tune-up? (Plugs, wires, throttle cable adjustment, dist cap/rotor, set timing, check timing advance, compression check, etc. etc.) It is entirely possible you are simply down about 30+ HP because of an undetected/unknown maintenance problem....

Re: should I get lower pitch?

craze1cars said:

On the surface it seems that yes, you'd benefit from lower pitch, probably all the way down to a 19 might be good.

Click to expand...

If I were to go down to a 19, should I stay with the same diameter?

craze1cars said:

But it's hard to tell for sure without knowing your drive ratio. You may have an error in one of your data (inaccurate tach or speedo possibly). Drive ratio would tell us if one of your gauges is incorrect. What is your drive ratio?

Click to expand...

I've been trying to figure out how to determine the drive ratio. The documentation I have found indicates that it could be 1.47, 1.62 or 1.81(H). While searching online I found one site that said it was 1.47, but who really knows...
Is there a simple way to solve this?

craze1cars said:

And as always...."running great" is very non-objective. Your boat is 14 years old. When was it's last comprehensive tune-up?

Click to expand...

That is a good question for which I have no answer.:facepalm:

Thanks for the fast response

Re: should I get lower pitch?

It does seem you are down on power. Could be as simple as a throttle adjuctment.
A good tuneup with a compression check first then test and we can help with a prop selection.