Prop Brand Suggestions

[willy]

Hey Ferm I talked with a good guy at the Prop Gods and after going over everything with me he is suggesting similar to you, and I ordered his suggestion as he will change it out if he is wrong for $29. He suggested i go with the Power Tech stainless three blade, 15 1/4 x 15) OFS3. He said it should get me to the upper end of my desired RPM range and should provide a great hole shot which I could use with such a heavy boat and give me a more effiicient cruise and mileage. He said I might lose a couple miles an hour top speed though which is fine with me as it is not important. The other up side is that it has great offshore performance and bite while improving manueverability.
He said the same thing about the OMC props as you are saying, that it is likely I am off by no more than 100 RPM's due to flex. He said I probably have more error in my tach than the prop is giving.
Two things of note they have found, in the four blade when you go below 17 you start getting some problems with bite in different sea conditions and they have found very few below 16 pitch that have performed well in that regard.Also diameter wise and fitting between the prop edge and the cavitation plate on the Evinrudes is important for vibration reasons so that is why he thinks it best I stay no bigger than his recommendation.

[THEFERMANATOR]

The POWERTECH OFS3 is a MIRAGE PLUS copy basically. You won't be disapointed with it, I'll guarantee you that. There are more expensive props out there that will do better, but only by a small margin in performance and a good size margin in price. That HYDRA-SPORT is a big heavy off shore hull, and needs a big propeller to bite in and hold. A 15 is a good starting point, but you may need a 16 pitch before it's over with. Prop it to turn up to about 5800 or so with a moderate load(2 people and half tank of fuel), and heavily loaded you want her to turn up to about 5400-5600. Lugging these big engines WILL kill em FAST, but a few extra RPM's won't hurt em a bit. Like I said I've got a 14 1/4 X 15 STILLETTO I'll send yeah to try for the cost of shipping, but it would be a waste of shipping feees as I know you won't like it if you get into any seas of any size.

[willy]

Thanks Ferm your input sounds right on, lets see how the 15 pitch does and Ken Z from Prop Gods said the same thing about if I need to change it will probably be to the 16.
I'd be worried if the boat had a lot of hours and the fellow ran it a lot but he fished in Cape May inside the back bay area and only had a 168 hrs on the boat so I don't think he could have done any damage to it. he said he never even knew what the max rpm was on the boat until I showed him at sea trial. Seemed a little uncomfortable at that speed, made me laugh.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Hit her with a good shock treatment of SEAFOAM and be prepared for HUGE clouds of blue smoke is what I would od to it. If she was run that easy her wholel ife with that prop, chances are she's carboned up a bit.

[willy]

What do you think as far as application just dump an extra large amount in the tank or do a fogg job with the in the carb squirt set up

[THEFERMANATOR]

Persoanally I would add 2 quarts to the tank first, run most of it out to break loose the big stuff gently. Then do the fogging with a small can mixed with about a pints worth and 3 gallons of gas to do a deep cleaning of the remainder. These big loopers don't like lugging, a good hard WOT run does em alot good