25' Outlaw setup tinkering
 

Who has played with their setup? Prop, drive, blueprinting, horsepower???? Bring it all on, I'm looking for a full education into what I can do with my soon to be rocket ship.

I have a 2001 25' OL which had a 496mag on it and I think my passengers were considering having tea and crumpets at WOT so I put in a 540 to make her scream. I'm running the original bravo drive(I know, should step up to something with real hardware) and a 27p Mirage Plus(non-labbed) prop. I'm getting between 74 and 77 at WOT depending on conditions. The motor has about 25 hours on it so it may not have loosened up yet.

What have you guys done? Any suggestions? Drive height?

charger
 

slap a procharger on it. I have a 24ft outlaw 1997 with a 502mag ho, and i have a m1 procharger on it. But when you do that watch the gas leak out the back end when you take off. I was happy with the procharger. It gave me about 120 hp on the engine, They run about $5900.

That would be easy enough, but I'd rather not cut my engines life in half.....I'm talking about pure setup, drive height, etc....My next change will be to lab the prop, go to full hydraulic and an upgrade on the drive next winter. Just trying to get ahead of the 8 ball on what others have done that has worked.

On your 2001 and with the speed you are running, a shorty will net you a couple of mph. It has a fairly conservative x if in stock location. If you go to a shorty, you will need a 4 blade prop. Using a -3 IMCO and then use spacers to dial in the height is good way to go imo. About the steering, you run a 70+ mph boat with a 540. Put that on the #1 spot of your list. Regarding the labbing, where are you in terms of revs and the rev band for your motor? Labbing what you have is a very good idea, epecially if you are at the lower rpms of your rev band and don't want to run a shorty. Call Bblades or Greg Hittner about this. If your current best is 77, 80 is not out of reach with a nicely labbed M+. You can also have a B1 labbed and stay at or possibly gain a little speed but with better mid range and faster time to plane ect. This would also be the prop to lab if you go with a shorty. Just remember that every boat is different and they don't behave exactly the same.

Good luck with your project.

Steering, steering, steering!

Thanks A.O, great info.....the steering is at the top of my list for sure...I don't like how it feels at that speed right now and I'm definitely suspect of running those speeds with anyone in the boat. I'm running a stock 27p M+ at 4850-5000 rpm at WOT, running 45-48 at 3500 rpm, 60ish at 4000 rpm....labbing would probably take me about right where I want to be at WOT 5100-5350ish. I've heard the B1 makes this hull a little squirrely with aft lift??? Why would I need a 4 blade with the shorty?(just trying to understand the changes the shorty would give me, I'm not exactly new, but I do have a lot to learn).

Exactly;)

It is true that a stock B1 in some cases can cause issues with stern lift. This is also why I ponited out that labbing it is needed. It's a fairly flat lifting prop, but it can easily be labbed for the bow lift the Bajas need and then you won't have the loose transom issues some experience with the B1, Q-IV or Q-IV-X ect. props. In terms of 3 vs. 4 blades, that is simply a question of how much blade area is in the water. When you raise the X or shorten the drive X with a shorty, it goes without saying, that you have less prop in the water. Therefore you need more blade area to keep the bite in the water. Larger diameters and more blades are the common way to fix this. Depending on how you go, realive to where you are now, you might still be able to run the 3 blade. When you go up, at some point, you will find your boat unable to get on plane with the 3 blade or blow out in turns ect. this is when you need one more blade. Do you know what your current x-dimension is, or how deep your prop shaft centerline sits?

I don't know how deep it is....how do you measure that?

Start by trimming your drive to neutral so that the prop shaft sits parallel to the keel/bottom. This is also a good time to mark it on your trim indicator if you haven't done that. Put a piece of masking tape or some other kind of tape you can write on, on the front of the drive. Mark the point where the prop shaft center line is on the front of the drive. Run a spirit level or straight edge along the keel to the front of the drive, directly in front of the center of the drive. Mark this point on the masking tape. Voila, there's your prop shaft centerline depth between those two marked points.