I'd put the water pressure line or sender up on the thermostat housing.as for grinding,take a little at a time or you'll be grinding into the hull alittle to gain back water flow.bending the trailing edge up a little to help as a scoop works,just remember to keep it down more as you'll have less pick up in the water.

My pickups are rectangular shape. The bottom side that faces down, has a plate welded. It is then drilled with a bunch of small holes for water to pass thru . it filters out any debris from entering the system.

Coolerman made adjustable pickups if I remember correctly. That may be a option for you also.

My water pickup is maybe an 1/8 Inch below the bottom of the boat at most.
It was the same on my Pantera. Both had/have plenty of water pressure and no issues.

thanks for info.
Sutphen30 - it doesn't have steps.

Ya'lls info gives me a little more confidence that I will be able to take off quite a bit from the just under half inch they are now but I think best to go 1/8 at a time until I get the pressure down to 20psi or so as long as its cooling good. Hopefully may gain a couple mph if I end up at only about 1/8 deep. Will let yall know but will be a few weeks, rebuilding one motor now.

I know you don't have steps.was asking Black baja,3"'s is-really deep.only saw it like that on my friends formula.water pressure is perfect at 110mph.

Yes, stepped hull. Every boat is different when it comes to water and cooling motors. Some boats have water problems. Proper setup of a water pickup is trial and error. There is no magic formula.

have you thought about running low water pick ups and ditching the transom mount.may pick up a lot of speed.

Been there done that even tried modifying low water pickup on the drive. Nothing worked. Had a transom mount pickup right off the bottom of the hull (boxed one just like everyone else) no go. I think the steps out a lot of air in the water I was seeing 18psi with drive pickup and flush transom hull pickup. Motor would get hot. Only thing that worked was burying the pickup. I talked to a guy that has rigged a ton of boats he said sometimes you get a hull with these issues.

Its got bravo ones so if it came with the factory hose setup through the transom plate from the standard water pickups everything would be fine. Previous owners had problems with corrosion at the fitting going thru the transom plate and choking off water flow. Very common problem.

THe problem is they should have just kept it simple and corrected the corrosion issue. THen no deep scoops to drag the boat down possibly 1-3 mph, and much much less mud/sand is picked up by the the standard Bravo pickups when beaching a boat like we don around Lake Charles, La several times each day when were are out.