Looking for advice on possible balance issue and solutions.

I have had this 2004 29 Fever for a year now. Single 525efi, bravo xr 1.5, 280k tabs, full hydraulic steering, bravo 28p rh prop.

Only issue is the boat sits low in the water on the left (port) side and rides up on plane noticeably leaning to port. I have to offset the left tab 2-3 positions further down than the right tab to get it to ride level. Very noticeable at cruise speeds not so much at wot.

Under the hatch all the extras are mounted on the port side of the motor such as a water tank (empty), group 27 battery, prelube system, hatch actuator, drive trim pump. Seems like this was done for a reason possibly to offset the weight of the driver? However, am I correct that a RH prop will torque the boat to port which is why the driver is always starboard anyway?

I downloaded a 2005 Fountain owners manual that shows they moved the battery and water tank to the other side that year. So, is this just a weight balance issue or should I be running a LH prop with my setup? I am leaning toward first moving the battery to the far right side and see how it sits in the water.

Have you checked to see that your indicators actually correspond to the tab levels?

I should have added that to the original information above but yes the tabs do follow the indicators. I keep the boat on a lift and check both tab and drive position out if the water to see what is what.

I have the exact same set up but I have a left hand drive and the boat runs level in all conditions. Full tank, empty tank, passengers, no passengers, slow speed or fast. I heard they made these boats left handed drive to prevent them from listing but I'm not positive.

Your listing in the classifieds is what got me thinking about this. I saw your battery was mounted far to the starboard side and thought that was the answer until I noticed you are running a LH prop. Does your boat sit low on one side?
Also, when I first noticed the problem the water tank was full so I drained it but didn't seem to make a difference running, that has to be a 200-300 lb change??? Anyway a lot more weight than swapping sides with the battery.

I ran a left handed prop on my 2006 29 for the same reason. Also you might try adding a battery to the other side to even things things out. Not to mention having a deep cycle battery to power the radio and other electronics while the engine is off is a pretty nice option.

My boat sits level in the water, the starboard battery was moved because the sea strainer is mounted there. The port side battery is mounted next to the motor and the freshwater tank is one stringer over from it. I'm sure an empty freshwater tank will make a difference.

Spec sheets for the sport boats (42', 38', 35' and 29') says they all used the same tank and its a 13 gallon freshwater tank. At 8 lb per gallon, that's 104 lbs, or about the same as one extra small sized person sitting on port side - that's why it probably didn't seem to make a noticeable difference. Most of the single engine Fountains that I had would lean a lot with a RH prop whenever we tried a RH B1 prop. It wasn't as noticeable after up on plane at higher speeds, but very noticeable while getting on plane. A lot (most?) of the singles left the factory with LH props, from what I remember. Mine would still lean a little getting on plane with the LH prop, but not nearly as much as with a RH prop. A 29 with 525 and 28p prop will take a little longer to get on plane (26P B1 prop made a big improvement on holeshot on that boat/engine combination with almost no WOT speed loss), so you would probably notice it more/longer.

I remember that there was one person who had a Fountain that leaned to one side, just sitting still in the water. Just did a search in the Fountain forum for it ... it was in a thread called "05 X listing to port side".

mine tends to that when I got 5-6 people in my 29, not bad, and it has always seemed as if the people were equally distributed. Dont know if its the cooler in the cabin. I dont know I have twins.