If the weight ends up being the ticket I've got a couple hundred pounds of lead if you need it. I've got it left over from my wake boarding days when 2000#'s of water ballast just wasn't enough. PM me if you're interested. BTW the transom of your boat looks amazing, if I ever went back to inboards I'd definitely go the arneson route.

For what it's worth I think you may be onto something, apparently one of the boats in my area had to add ~500#'s to the transom to get it right, and as soon as they did the boat ended up handling great and they were able to get it running considerably faster. Granted it shouldn't be faster with more weight but if that's what it took to make it safe to run faster so be it.

I've been curious about this as well. When you drop a bunch of weight off the transom from lighter engines or drives. Adding rockers sounds like the solution, in my head at least. Definitely try the props first :D

What are the rake of the propellers on this boat?

The faster you want to go, the further aft the CG really wants to be. If CG is too far forward for the speed, you'll be running at less than the optimum angle of attack, and end up with a lot of extra wetted surface area. As more boat comes up out of the water, and the center of lift goes further aft, you either need more bow lift or CG shift to compensate. The Arnesons don't give much bow lift compared to a bevel shaft drive owing to the drive angle geometry, so the proper setup for Arnesons is probably going to have LCG further aft.

All three are the same 17.5x37-18 5 Blade
Thanks