380 K Plane on 27 Fountain?
 

Recently freshened up the 540 and did some work to it in the process. Now making 620/635 which is a decent amount of power for this boat. Something I struggled with in the past is chine walk, pretty bad actually. I know people steer through it and I'm sure I can figure that out, but would the boat be safer if I swapped out the 280s for a set of 380s? I heard it can make the boat a little more sensitive to small adjustments, which makes sense. Other than that, any reason NOT to go bigger?

Thanks

Driver input and seat time. Will the tabs make a difference? Sure. I have 380s on my 27. But proper steering input, drive height and prop will lead you in a much better direction. Curing chine walk with tab input in a boat like that is a band aid. That boat shouldnt really be a handful until its in the high 80s. You have full hydraulic steering? Transom dry?

Thanks for the reply. It has a lower IMCO but pretty sure it’s factory height (0), not shorter. Latham steering. Transom is dry, was actually just redone a couple years ago, new wood and glass.

Last year was the first year I owned it so still getting comfortable with it. I’d say around mid 60’s it would want to start walking on me. That’s with drive and tabs at neutral position.

Thank you

You may want to try a thread in the fountain section. I had a straight bottom 27 fever that ran 70 without hydraulic steering and don’t recall much chine walk. I did run a left hand prop as do most people I know with single engine fountains.

Baby steps with learning to drive a boat on a pad. Best bit of advice- Better to drive proactively than reactively. Small wheel input to keep it on the pad instead of large wheel input trying to get it "back" on the pad.