So that was your prop. I have been paying very close attention to Jon's prop testing. I can imagine that a Merc labbed Bravo 28 could be perfect for my set up where I run..... ie 915 elevation. I am currently running a labbed Bravo 28 but done by a Lake Havasu shop that Nordic had used. However it has been additionally tweeked to provide more rpm's back when my motor was lower power. It runs good now up around 5700 rpm but I do not know at what rpm my torque peaks so more pitch could be a good thing...... or not. I had planned to dyno the motor to learn its peak torque rpm before doing any prop testing.

Rage, just a little more info for you. I just made a run with a stock 28 Bravo 1 prop on my Rage yesterday. I was able to spin it to 4800 rpm at 72.6(15% slip). I checked my dyno weather station and it showed 3.5% correction. In the summer I spun a stock 26 to 5100 at 70 mph. Dyno showed 8.5% correction, so the air was 5% (23 hp) better yesterday, accounting for some of the speed increase. Just trying to get some good baseline data before the engine mods.

Those numbers have a very familiar ring to them. Is yours an open or closed bow Rage. If OB did you run those numbers with or w/o the bow cover installed? Any chance you could get your hands on a Merc labbed 28 to test? Thanks for the info.

PS I am almost done painting the lake house then I can tackle the Rage motor and sort out the valve train noise issue.

I have the merc labbed 28 that isn't much good to me. I bought it from Teague without testing first & it's a bit small. I would love to swap for the 30 I need for up here or sell if anyone is interested.

What kind of noise? I have quite the noise at start-up, but goes away quickly once oil pressure comes up. Engine shop says the rockers were left a little loose for reliability. Has anyone heard of this? Does it make them more reliable? I would think the clacking would cause damage?

Hydraulic lifters have a spring pre-load on them that should prevent lifter noise on startup. I may be wrong... but I don't think the lifters are adjusted correctly.

Chris

p.s. are you sure it is lifter noise... and not injector noise... they tick also