Good explanation, just curious, and you have an answer that makes sense.
Thanks, Ken
How did you know what I was wondering, lol! I hope they get the post order straightened out soon.

Most of you know I come from a desert racing background, so I am much more in tune with susppension than motors.

THereis an old saying in my world that still rings true,

Good shocks can make up for bad springs, but good springs can never make up for bad shocks...

How would that translate to motors?

Bad ju ju I'm guessing, but hey, moters definitely not my game. My job is to make engineers bad ideas a reality lol.

Now that takes a LOT of alcohol.....

You don't know the half of it!

Someone get this back on track. Sorry for the derail.

Depends on what you are starting out with for each.

If You have a cam that allows jack in for air, adding better heads won't help a ton.

Put a set of AFR's on a 330 454 and you won't see as much as you'd think.

Put a set of AFR's on a 260hp 5.7 Mag, and again, you won't see as much as you'd think.

Your biggest bang for the buck is always getting rid of your biggest restrictionn1st. If your motor has 2,3, or 4 restrictions as bad as each other, well, then you need to address all of those.

BTW:

This is easy to remember.

Nothing beats good head. Nothing !

Is there a way to "view" fuel consumption? Boost is an easy reference, but my 454 mags are not boosted.
I had same issue with overpropped when I brought my boat down from Va. to South La.

25p M+ ran fine in Va. and close to 5k. They cruised at 3500 @50 in flat water, 52 in a lil choppy (2ftrs)
Then it heated up and got humid. Still cruised the same, but could only turn just over 41-4200 lugging motors at WOT. Yes, that was a oddly high amount of rpms to loose in the heat/humidity. Lost 200 rpms the next weekend I ran in la. with same temps, though we have a lot more humidity. (ended up with labbed 24b1s)

I also searched for torque curve dyno results and "boattest" fuel consumption tests, but like MT said, its all relative. Boat, weight, pitch, WOT vs correct WOT range.

Always thought that being able to hit at least bottom range of WOT would be your best cruise possible and hitting top would net best WOT speed but smaller pitch to get the extra rpm at WOT would hurt cruise.... then again, we are only talking about 2-3 mph difference at same cruise rpm...

very interesting thread MT!

Prop for max engine rpm. That's all.