Ihave access to another 26 bravo and a 28 hydromotive that turns just as easy as his 26 bravo so I am going to try these.

The 29 is a great boat! I love mine. I just went through a year of hunting to get one for our family. Agree with checking the little stuff ( wiring, working gauges, accessories, drive/trim indicators.....) that will nickel and dime you. The 29 is a razor through lake chop and really good for performance and a roomy cockpit considering it's only a 29ft (or 19ft to all non fountain guys). I believe any of the motor configurations work well for that hull (I'm one of the rare guys with the "non-blue motor, reliable as ever twin small blocks that only gps at 70mph" guys) so I'm sure you will love a single big block as popular opinions have always supported. Reggie didn't make many slow boats, as it wasn't really his thing. Let us know the progress. The 29 is such a blast to run.

I tried a hydromotive 26p cleaver style a couple years ago. I had a terrible experience with it. I could barley get on plane. It blew out terribly, no matter what I did with the drive and tabs. I think around 99-2000 fountain raised the x on the 29 models. The hydro cleaver gives too much stearin lift, along with the aggressive x it leads to easy blow out. Anyone chime in if I'm not accurate in that statement. Also, have you calculated your slip numbers? That can also tell you how efficient you are, it is possible to lower your rpm with a worked 28p, but you may not see much gain in performance if at all.

A friend has a 2006, 29 Fever w/525 EFI, with ,,Labbed ,,26 Bravo1,, 3/4 tank, 2 people, 2 anchors, etc, he runs 76 on GPS, w/ his bone stock 26 Bravo1 he runs 72,
w/ a 28 Bravo1 he struggles to get on plane and runs about 73 w/less rpm.

looking at my 26 last night in more detail, it looks like it has been either repaired or labbed. Putting on a stock 26 and then will go from there.

Going from my repaired 26p to the brand new one I gained almost 3 mph at cruise and a best of .5 mph on top end, but dropped my wot rpm 100-150 rpm which put me right at 5200rpm. Hopefully you will have similar results.

What does your cruise at for mph when running 4000 rpm

Honestly I couldn't give you something super specific at 4000rpm. I'm either cruising at 3500-3600rpm or in wot. When i did my testing last year i recorded numbers at 3600rpm and wot. I can tell you heavy load, 5 people 3/4 average on gas I run 45-46mph gps, with just me and the g/f with the right water conditions I've seen 50-52mph at 3600rpm. It really depends on load and water conditions. when I'm out this weekend I'll make a run at 4000 and see what I can at. Out of all my cruise and wot runs, my slip % is below 16, which is pretty good. Just for example Sunday evening with at least 1/2 a tank of full if not more, 1 passenger and a healthy tail wind I ran 74.8 mph gps at 5200-5250rpm with a slip of 13%.

I noticed that it seemed to want to only run 42-44 at 4000 rpm which is leading me to believe that this 26 prop is toast. I figure it should be running at least 50 at 4000. Its been a while since I have had a single engine boat. Also my last one would cruise at 85 at 4000 so I have my own adjustment to contend with as well.

I'm goig to make a guess at 4000rpm depending on conditions 53-57mph with a new 26p. If your only running low 40's at 4000rpm I'd say that prop isn't right, that would make sense why you are pulling max rpm at wot even with a load.