It ran 105 before hitting the limiter. Original height was 1 1/4 below bottom and with the 2" shorties we were 3/4 inch above the bottom. Something shorter may have even worked better.

Thunderdan,
You mentioned the new case helps when close to the surface. How far below the bottom of your boat is the prop shaft with the new gearcase.

Also, could you clarify your comment of 300 rpm left? What was the rpm increase between the stock lower and the new one (with the same prop).

Thanks in advance,
Rick

heaven...
 

Sonny:

Congrats on your speed gain. Lake X is the place definitely to get your Mercury stuff dialed in! I spent over a month there in 1999 living in a motor home. We'd start testing at first light and go until they ran us out of there, then we'd take the motor home to Hooters and sleep in the parking lot. I started with a 72 mph crooked bottom , slow F1 boat and after major blueprinting the bottom, testing at Lake X , wound up with a 81.6 mph winning boat. Your committment to testing will make you faster than all your buddies with equal power. BH

Re: heaven...
 

That's interesting! Could you expand on that for us? What exactly did they do to the bottom? How long did it take? What was the cost?

Thanks!
Joe

rv,

I am not sure of what the distance is, and the boat is in Fla so I can not get the exact measurement for you. I will get it when I am down there for the Miami show.

At the Lake we we running the lowers with the 1:5 gears, it was the only setup the lake had at the time. We ran a 32 pitch wheel and were all over the rev limiters, we then switch to 34's and we could not spin them past 5100 rpms, so I fell right in the middle of the two size props that were at the Lake. I will try and go back to my notes about what we picked up with the shorter lowers.

blueprinting...........
 

Joe:

We blueprinted our own bottom. It's not that hard just tedious work. Get your boat off the trailer , get a straight edge and start sanding on that bad boy. You'll have to be careful not to get into the fiberglass and be prepared to fill in places also. We never even gelcoated our bottom back. It was nice and flat and loved the sanded texture. There ya have it straight from a hill billy in Ga - haha - BH

Thunderdan,
Thanks for the reply. If you remember when your in Florida I would be interested in knowing the prop shaft distance from the bottom of the boat with the new shorter lower.

How was your setup for getting on plane with the short lower?

I have heard good things under the right setup about the new gear case.

Thanks,
Rick
p.s. have fun in sunny Florida.