Is it worth hundreds of dollars to you to top out at 42.5 instead of 41.2?

Is most of your running WOT, just on plane, trolling, or looking for best economy.

What's most important to you? Hole shot, cruising, top end, etc

Are you wanting to cruise with it, or run her WOT alot? If you after a good affordable propeller for cruising, then the SOLAS 4 blade aluminum would be high up on my list. If you want a good top end, then a SOLAS stainless 3 blade would be a good choice. I reccomend SOLAS because they are cheap, and so far all of them I have run have been VERY smooth running. They are also the OEM prop for HONDA to give you a clue as to there quality.

That's real interesting, I know you guys know your stuff, but I never use anything BUT stainless mostly because I'm in shallow water. I have worried about tearing up gears but it's never happened. Running the islands here you are bound to go through sand or mud. Composite prop - the blades break off. AL props bend, cup & wear away, Stainless prop - it just got a sharpening.

Part of the reason for my decision is after working on those islands I learned about the disastrous results of losing power in shallow surf. I have a couple of friends who rolled a whaler, what a story!

Oyster beds & more solid objects do more harm, but I still run the Michigan 19 pitch that was on it when I bought it, just a bit sharper & lighter after all these years.

Hijack...

So I'm turning 5700 at wot with a 3 blade 17p with a light load. Not sure diameter, but it's on a Yamaha 225 4 stroke. This is my Robalo, not the V. I'd like more holeshot and could care less about top end but do want to consider efficiency. I really liked the 4 blade on my V. If I switch to 4 blade, what pitch should I be considering?

For an engine like the YAMAHA, I would be looking at a mIRAGE or MIRAGE copy. They are 3 blade large diamter props that bite in HARD, give good holeshot, EXCELLENT cruise, and hold the water like nobodys business. You will sacrifice a bit on the top end, but the MIRAGE style large diamter props are just great all round performers offshore on bigger boats.

what he said, its hard to beat. The new mercury enertia series is supposed to be the ticket for four strokes, I haven't played with them or seen them on anyones boat yet. The Mirage is always my go to on everyday use boats, if nothing else,it gives me a good starting point to go with when reproping as they are very consistent on their performance. I just went thru reproping a 25 Intrepid(twin 150 Opti's) for one of my customers, we started with 21 Tempest and it wouldn't tune any rpm(5000). I told him he needed somewhere between a 17 and 19 Mirage as my first guess. I changed the motor height and four different sets of props he brought me(17 mirage, 19 mirage, 19 revo, 17 protech). Ended up with 19P Mirage cut down a little to get the rpms up. The revo had the best midrange but lost 5 mph at top end and wouldn't turn over 4800, the protech worked real good, but the 17p number was a lie as it wouldn't turn as much as the 19 Revo. The prop guy he was buying the props from said the 15 protech sucked and he didn't stock them. WE were also trying to get the boat to stop porpoising. I had raised the engine height to try and get the rpms up. The boat had been rigged at Fon Du Lac by Mercury ( former WIsconsin Fish and Game boat). Intrepid swore the Tempest was the way to go(it sucked). The mirages cut his fuel burn at cruise by 6 gph, He lost 1 mph over the tempest at WOT but picked up 2 MPH at cruise. Hard to beat a Mirage

Spares - I couldn't agree more. I love the mirage and mirage plus props.

My experience has been that the older mirage props will turn about 200 RPM's faster than the mirage plus. I recently bought a 17p Enertia (14.75") and it's faster than both the 17p mirage and 17 mirage plus. I suspect that the 15.5" diameter of the mirage plus / mirage might be the difference in speed. The mirage on my boat clearly has a better low speed performance vs enertia. It'll hold 10/11/12/13 mph without any trouble, but Enertia is 2mph faster WOT.

I saw the video on CSC Big Shrimpin, nice work and way to step out there and take a chance on that prop. I want to try one on the flats boat. It has the new 115 4S Merc with the giant lower unit like the v-6 motors. I took the Thunderbolt (Mirage Copy) off the Wellcraft and got nearly 10 mpg at 12 mph on plane at 2500 RPM. High five holds better with the motor jacked up but mileage is not as good at only 7.7 mpg at the same speed. Mirage was the most efficient of the five props I tested. Again and again the Mirage seems to win of the props I tested anyways (Tempest, Quicksilver, Thunderbolt (Mirage Copy), High Five, and another prop that Ferman loaned me.
Not as great of a selection in aluminum props. No fancy derivatives like the Tempest, Enertia, Chopper, Cleaver in aluminum. Not that any of those would work in all applications, just stating the obvious.

The other prop I loaned you was pretty close to a TEMPEST, just made by a different company.

It's done
 

I left the country for the last two weeks, delivering a yacht to St Thomas. So I didn't discuss the project much with the installers. I was not totally sure what size motor to get. I knew I wanted a white small block and decided to go for the 200HP model.

The original plan was to use a jack plate. I requsted the installer put on an aluminum splash plate to raise my transom back up to the original 25". This morphed into putting on two thick aluminum plates and eliminating the jack plate. They put spacers in between them also, which stiffens up an already strong transom.

For the prop, I let the installer decide for me. They picked a three blade stainless steel--ok I guess fast is good. I wanted the digital gauges--two of the large ones. I may add two small gauges to fill the gaps.

Next up, is registering the boat and I'll probably rewire the whole boat.

I am thinking about removing the T-Top and repainting it and that might be a perfect time to form up a hardtop.

I am a happy camper. The motor looks so good, I'll have to spruce up the boat. I'm thinking about using a hard finish bottom paint, and perhaps at some point I'll repaint the topsides.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ps0spvxbb0.jpg