sidetracked

i bought it used with 13 hrs. on it. the guy never used it. and i talked to Formula and your right there were only a couple built.

Rippem

on that magic Alabama water. Just pullin' yer chain Robert.

Formula test report Feb '01 (regular optioned 353 w/ Ho'es) was 73.5 two way average on salt water, decent air, negligable wind, less than 1/2 fuel, 2 guys, and I'm sure very little gear if any at all.

This was with reportedly stock 28 Bravos.

with that said, save your $$, trouble, and prop durability and swap those 28's for a set of STOCK 26 Bravos.

my boat ran like yours. under-revving...over-propped... period!
The same 46-4700 RPM, sub 70 MPH top end, just sluggish overall.

sh!tty low speed planing performance
lazy mid-range
and take a nap while you wait to see if your going to break 70 MPH.

26's are right on the nutz on my boat in freshwater with fuel, water in the tank, 60 lbs. of just anchors/chain/rhode, 50 CD's, her clothes, cleaning supplies (30 lbs right there ) coupla beach chairs, 27 towels, bla, bla...you know real world.
It all adds up in wieght, is most often forward in the boat and in a design that runs so flat...it costs you!
that a/c in yours is a killer in that respect with this power! and the gen in the back don't help!

I've run 74 and small change several times...this boat will never hit 75 GPS period.
71-73 everyday. hmmm...that jives with the Formula reported potential of the wieght, bottom, and power doesn't it?

I can stay on plane (cruise) pretty easily down to 26-2700 and mid 30's MPH, though just above that is the sweet low speed cruise spot for efficiency.

the boat actually has mid-range response now and is definitely quicker to top speed.
RPM's are right at 5000 with it all hung out and freed up in some chop.
having had the scanning software plugged in to my motors, I do bump the limiters...
like a hundred and some odd occurances for a total of 16 seconds of rev limit time on the port for example, in ~200 hours of run-time.
keep in mind in several seconds of WOT you can accumulate many "occurances" as the r's just meet the limit several or more times in a few seconds.
So I'm by no means "all over the limiters". only once in a while triggering for a fractions of a second on a WOT run.

now taking into consideration the performance I've reported, having compared 28's/26's on this boat, the scan results, and what Formula says the boat should do with HOES...

no thin edged fragile "labbed" (or tweaked to your application) props that are hard to match if you damage one, for me...I do too much shallow water exploring and beach time for that. I ding one up it's as simple as trying one or more off-the-shelf 26's from my local merc dealer 'till I find a match.

take into consideration my boat is heavy (sorta) like yours with option wieght. mine is a full blown 353 (prior to the "Sport" marketing whiz-bang whizardry) vaccu-flush, footrests ect. ect.

ericaull

Rip and Side, I have an 06 353sport, 496HOs, Latham steering,and several low wieght options. On salt water,decent day, nice chop, I have run a top speed of 74.5mph on GPS(garmin) and Livorsi GPS speedo. 28p 4 blade props, no modifications to any running gear@4800rpms. The engines seem to run much better now that they have over 50hrs. on them(70hrs.). As per a prior discussion with Rippem, I will eventually try 26p 4 blades.....for all the reasons he mentioned. My boat is a little sluggish getting on plane runs real well otherwise....Eric

Rippem

there certianly is no right or wrong as I'm convinced they all run a little different in the end

just tried to detail the experience with my boat

Eric, I bet if you were in FW you're boat would run similar to ours with 28's and you would want 26's.

sometimes two will run similar top speeds at different RPM (as I think has been illustrated here) but it's about driveability (and acceleration) the rest of the time ya' know?

sidetracked

thanks for all the help guys, the engs. have 14hrs on them now. i will go with a 26p at the 20 hrs range or so. now the last question is can i trade the 28p for 26p with mercury? someone told me i could do that but thats all the info they gave me. thanks sidetracked

ericaull

Rippem, I agree there are alot of factors involved....wieght , salt/fresh, altitude, fuel load, driver technique, and the list goes on.....I,m gonna try a couple low fuel, cool weather runs and will post results.......Did I say cool weather???? How depressing winter is coming again!!!