Michigan Apollo Prop

[Greyduk]

Thanks Guys for the input. I found a Mirage Plus 15 1/2 x 17 that will be here in the next couple of days. I am looking forward to seeing what type difference it will make. I won't run it for several more weeks, but will try to post the results. The Mirage Plus appears to be an older style without the vent holes, but I'm not sure that will make any difference in my case.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Sounds like the early mirage prop, pretty sure the mirage plus all had vent holes. The vent holes really help smaller engines getting on plane by allowing them to slip at low rpm's, but once on plane the water moves fast enough to render the vent holes inoperative restoring full bite. It's a sim0le design, but works very well.

[Greyduk]

The Mirage Plus prop came today. It is a Mirage Plus 15.5" x 17 with no vent holes. The number on it is 48-18278 A45. As best as I can determine the Mirage Plus with the vent holes is number 48-18278 A46. I am going to try it and see how it performs and go from there. If I am really happy with it I might think in terms of finding one with the vent holes.

I went to the boat today. The prop that is on it is Mercury #48-16314-17. What I am finding is conflicting info on the diameter. Some say it is 13" and some other info says 14.5". It is not a Vengeance prop. It is probably circa 1994 approximately. At this point I am probably finding out more than I intended. LOL.

[THEFERMANATOR]

The 163 means it's a vengence prop. That's a 14.5"x17p entry level prop known for having alot of slip. I've got one out in the shed. It SLAMMED the 5k rpm rev limiter when I tried it on a 25' searay I had with a 5.7l i/o. Swapped in a 17 pitch apollo large diameter(mirage copy without vent holes), and it dropped back to 4300 rpm's. That was over a 700 rpm drop(don't know the actual drop since the vengence slammed the limiter with ease) staying with the same pitch. Ended up having the prop repitched to a 16 so we could get back up to 4800 rpm's wot.

So don't let them being the same pitch throw you, try it out. That 27 searay my neighbor has had 21 pitch vengence props on it, and would need 17 pitch mirage's to keep the same wot rpm's.