Hey guys just got a Nova 3 and love it so far, I know its a big heavy boat but I needed something for the wife that rode smooth and took well to the bay, plus had room for her and I and are to little boys. I think it has the wrong props on her though as it is into the 5400 rpm range, it has twin 350s with alpha 1's with 19p props, I am looking at adding thru hull exhaust and maybe some better air filters. Right now at pushing it hard for a little it ran 52.8mph on GPS so I am wondering what props should be on this boat maybe 21p or 23p I am guessing. Any help would be great. Thanks guys.

hi. welcome aboard. i have your boat's twin brother. i am currently trying to get it back together. i owned it 6 years ago and bought it back this winter. he ran good with 23 mirage plus props but . i currently have a 21 mirage, 23 laser, 23 mirage and a 23 mirage plus. at 20 inches of pitch, each 2 inch increment is approx 10%. 5400 now. go to 21 and you will be around 4900. 23 and will be 4400 or so. what bay? what you really want to do is try a couple of diff props before buying. there are a lot of guys on here with largish prop collections. with wifey and kids you might be happiest with 21's. at least SHE might. the guy i sold the boat to (and bought it back from) says he saw 63 mph on gps at 5300 rpm's. motors have a little work done to them now. part of me wants to try 25's. part of me wants to put 4.3 v6's in it.

why would you want to put 4.3's in it. I am trying to hang with my friends but they all run 24-26 footers with BBC and have lots of work running 65-75, I know the 29 foot of this Nova isnt gonna get there unless I dump tons into these motors, I just gonna get some K&N filters and some thru hulls so it sounds fast lol.....I know it needs props but just not sure what ones as I know that the drives are not counter rotation either.

I had 23 3 blade cleavers on my old nova. They were pretty good all around props for the boat. Ran about 55 at 4400-4500

I have 23p Mirage's on my 87 Nova 3 and have hit 68mph @ 4600rpm with 5 guys and full tank of fuel. Previous owner says he hit 73-74 on GPS with just him and 1/4 tank of fuel. But my motors are fresh 383's dyno'ed at 450hp each and are counter rotating drives also. I would think either 21 or 23p would be good for your boat. I personally would be nervous about running those motors at 5400rpm for very long. May not be the fastest hull in the water but let me tell you on days with a 3-4' chop I sure love the boat. One of the best looking 80's hulls IMO.

21p mirage plus will work best for you. Stock 350 top ends are not made to spin much more then 4800rpms in an efficient manner.

I am running 23p mirage plus at about 73-74mph with built sbc's at 5400-5500rpms. I am thinking about trying some 25p to see what happens but my motors are happiest higer in the rpms. If the 25p pull me down too much, a call to BBlades will get me a labbed set of 25's then I should be about 78mph. Then when thats boring time for forced induction!

The Nova's are great boats for familys and with a little work can move out pretty well. Best part of these boats is they look great, ride smooth and there are not many of them left.

if only they spaced the motors a couple inches farther apart. a pair of alum head 50s's and these not-so-little buggers would be able to use the step in the hull and the steve stepp-style pad on the stern!!!

Well I went to 23p and ran 56 all summer at about 4300...motors are now out a d being built to make 355's and about 425hp so we shall see what happens next year!

I had the same boat boat with 13.75" x 21P props(both right hand props) and ran low 60's @ 4800-4900 RPM's with stock engines. Fun boat! FYI - I did add a tie bar and it seemed to handle better. Have Fun!

I have a Nova II that I am taking apart if you need any deck parts, exhaust tips, tie bar, etc let me know. Randy