Wasn't boat less long.
 

I picked up an 07 42 lightning with 525's ITS drives and sportmasters. Got it the Friday before Memorial day. Love it so far. It's a much bigger boat than my 35.

Looks great. It has the cut down windshield which I really like.

congrats!!

Sharp boat, congrats.

Awesome !

Awesome!

WOW! That's sweet!

90 mph ?

wow...awesome boat.. congrats!!!

nice looking fountain. enjoy

Congrats

B E A UTIFUL! Congrats!

Thanks everyone. It's under propped right now. Someone in its previous life put 1" spacers and 4 blade 32p bravos on it. Once I get it set up I'm hoping for upper 80s.

First off, beautiful ride.....love the paint.


There is speed to be found bringing the X back up and running 5 or 6 blade props, however that speed will cost you drives. My guess is the previous owner spaced down and went to the 4 blades because he had drive issues. We are only talking a few mph without the spacer and the 5 blades. Yet the drive will surface constantly, even on small boat wakes across a flat lake.

What RPM are you turning? What speed with the 32p? Are the lowers 1.36 or 1.50? At 1.5 one would think you have all the prop you need

Yes take the spacer out and carry more spare props and also put a piece of stainless plate under the cav plate to protect it for blade slinging !!!!!!! use herrings that will seal the deal , great looking boat by the way .

I will check the speed this weekend. The livorsi puck doesn't work. There is still a lot of throttle left in it when it hits the limiters.

Nice ride!

I am guessing you have 1.36 ratio, hooked up 32s will pull 90s on rev limiters in. 1.50 ratio. You are pretty much out of 4 blade options, the 34s and 36 bravo ones need serious work to perform correctly.

I would still think twice about removing that spacer. Problem with high x is breaking blades on 4 and 5 blade props, so most address with 6 and now 7 blade herings solid hub that now transfer that off/on force directly to your delicate xr gears.

How is the boat doing coming on plane? How about staying in the water in small waves?

I agree with 4bus on removing spacer. My 42 didn't like shorties with mild power.

I talked with rf3 yesterday. He also suggested leaving in the spacer and going with Max's. He said if I take the spacers out I would probably have to go with herrings. He also said they wouldn't last long before it started throwing blades. The boat planes really well. My 35 was harder to get on plane than this thing is. I had my 35 set up really well. It ran 93 in the shootout last year with bone stock 500 Efis.

Ron are you saying a 525 42 will run 90? I always heard 85 on a good day.

Just looked up serial numbers. It's has a 1.50 gear.

Way cool!!

No, not at all. I was questioning his gear ratio, based on a 32 pitch prop. 5350 rpm at 15 percent slip with a 32 pitch prop is 92 mph, which is right where mine was stock.

I have heard of 42s running mid/upper 80s with 6 blades and high x.

What prop came stock? If you are at 1.5 still with 32 blade props, something is wrong if you are on the rev limits and not running fast?

The max is a great prop for that boat. Both cruise and top speed

That 35 is moving on stock power. Nice set up.

Not sure what it came with. Rf3 thought it probably had herrings on it. It seems to run really well I just haven't had a working speedo in the boat yet. I tried using the app i have on my phone the other day but it didn't want to work either. The props are also labbed, but who knows who or what were done to them. I think the drives are still too high for a four blade to work properly.

Congrats! Sick boat... Love the colors!

I use the speedometer app on my iPhone, it works well. It also has a reverse feature to reflect off the windshield.

I have short sportmasters and a pretty high x-dimension on my outer motors on my 47. I currently have 6-blade Herings but I'm in the process of switching to 5-blade maximus which I think would work well with your setup as well. FYI..right now, 32P max's are backordered from Mercury.

Really nice 42 by the way.. congrats..

Actually his full stag engines are even higher than your outer engines. The distance away from the running surface below the drive is the X, full stag are very high, like 4-6 over your outer. From the look of his profile pic, scary high :D

I know you were switching the center to 5, what made you decide to switch them all?

It's kind of a long story, so grab your popcorn....

I replaced the center prop that I lost a few weeks ago with a box stock Maximus. That resulted in a 200-300 RPM difference (ie: center is spinning lower) between the center and other two engines, which means I'm going to have to lab the center prop. This was surprising going from a 6-blade to a 5-blade but is probably due to slightly larger diameter, rake and blade area that the Maximus has over the Hering but that also lead us to believe that the Herings may not have been "as advertised" on my original performance report. After talking to Jeff at Hering, he also speculated that the original center prop might have been different than the other two as well because the RPM's used to be matched but now that it is sitting at the bottom of Fire Island Inlet, we have no way to know. I've also noticed that the port engine is running slightly higher (50 rpm) than the starboard which is probably due to differerent dynamics between the port and center which are both spinning right. Last summer, before my boat was sold to me, it was lent to an OL customer who had a trim problem and smacked the props together. They were reconditioned but my overall performance numbers are lower than I think they should be which leads me to believe they removed a decent amount of blade surface. I've been working with Brett at BBlades who feels that a set of matched labbed Max's would improve my performance numbers a lot given my setup and I didn't think it made a lot of sense to lab a prop to match the Herings whose specs are now somewhat suspect. So, now I am waiting for a set of stock maximus to run with the center, get some numbers and then Brett can lab them all at the same time. In the end, I guess I just wanted to start fresh and tune new props for the boat. I will be keeping the 6-blade Herings as spares.

Fixed it for you :D

Labbing, thinning not good , keep them stock .

that would certainly be my preference. Have to see what kind of numbers I get when I have all three stock props on the boat.

You can never have the best of both worlds .

My priorities are planing, cruise performance and making sure the props are matched properly with the boat/power so that I can use the full rpm range when desired and not be loading the engines/drives more than necessary. Top end is less important to me. I spend 95% of my time in the cruise range (low 60's), so if I can get that a little lower RPM and burn a little less gas, that would be ideal. With three engines/tanks to feed, that matters. If I can get that with stock props, that would make life easier when/if I need to replace a prop. If I have to lab because I can't get to WOT with stock props, then I will have to do that.

wow were getting way off topic.. lol back to the OP's boat, IMO 32P B1's with 1.50 is a very common set up with the 525's , I believe most of the 42ex boats come equipped as such... same bottom, it is what is ,mid 80's boat likely ,(this is the same set up I'm running) just more HP & RPM & I'm right at 90, I've tried P5X's & broke a drive twice, so I'm back to 4 blades... seems to be a more reliable set up , the only downside I can see with the 4 blade is I lost about 5 MPH at 3200-3500 range ... enjoy your new boat, looks super sharp

Great looking boat ***

Beautiful boat. ....congratulations

On my 05 38 it came with, & I'm sure they all pretty much did, 32 Bravo 1's. Put -2" shorties on & running 31 6 blade Herings now. Sucks coming out of the hole, cavitates like crazy but cruise & top speed is way better. Right around 91mph @ 5200 rpm. Been running it for a couple years like this now with no issues. If I were you would definitely rip off that spacer & try a set of 6b Herings. I think Cobra power has used ones in stock. They will send you different sets to get it dialled in. Would try the same ones I got, bet it will be perfect.

As for the speedo you can't buy just the antenna any more from Livorsi. Can try the new one from them but you have a 50/50 chance of it working. I got a new gauge & antenna from Teague for $450.