Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghostrider
That sounds good mate,
What's the diff between the Rev 4 and Bravo 1 4 blade that makes for such a change?
If I'm to get a prop 'labbed' am I supposed to start with the right sized prop and have it tuned, or am I supposed to go up one size (pitch) and the 'labbing' shaves it to suit?
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The Rev 4 has a completely different blade geometry that was designed to provide more bow lift on boats with smaller HP that require the prop to carry the bow. It's a combination of pitch progression and rake that make it different. It's been my experience that the Bravo 1 likes a higher X to really perform well and can create some "interesting" handling quirks on boats with a low or deep X.
Labbing a prob is nothing more than asking your prop guy to blueprint the prop to either it's original factory specs or modified specs based on your requirements. Labbing a prop is a waste of time and money unless you have some baseline testing done with the base prop or another "labbed" prop of similar specs.
Typically labbing a prop meant truing up the blades and in the process thinning them along with sharpening the leading edge. These 2 things will tend to allow a prop with identical pitch turn slightly more RPM at WOT. Because of that people started to buy the next larger size then have it "labbed" to get to the WOT numbers they wanted.
The proper way to work a prop is to take the one you have/want and do proper testing, recording the performance over the entire range of operation. then, working with your prop guy you decide what characteristics you want and they incorporate that into the prop through the blueprint process. There's no reason to change the WOT RPM's through blueprinting if the prop already meets those requirements.
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