I have an 86' Scarab Panther, with 502's about 550hp each. Merlin heads, Crane, etc. all the good stuff. Since I put the motors together I have had no running problems what so ever, and I hope to keep it that way (250hrs).

The question I have is where do you think I can benefit to get more top end. The boat is set up with TRS drives and currently on 25 Mirage Plus' which top out at 5000 rpms. I have messed around with different props such as 25 mirage, 25 mirage plus, 23Mirage plus and a crappy set of 22 4blades. Top speed on the boat has been a best of 76mph. The 25 mirage plus seem to be the best props for comfort, cruise and stability.

I installed nose cones, with no gain, actually lost 1-2 mph and about 100-200 rpm. I guess due to less slip? This year I also swithched the drives to have the props turn IN, instead of out. It seemed to cary the nose better and ride smoother with only a 1 mph gain.

The boat just doesn't seem to want to go any faster.

Any ideas?

buy a Fountain

76 mph with app 550 hp sounds pretty good,at this point,id say if you want more speed,you need MORE POWER.as a rule of thumb,15 hp equils app 1 mph speed gain.CAN YOU SAY SUPERCHARGERS.

Frank just curious have you ever taken a straight edge to the bottom of the boat ? Frank we once talked about are Panther's and how the bottoms had to be repaired because of de lamination and the reason being is because of the material's that were used in the bottom for print thru which should have only been used on the hull side's , and if memory serves me right that material was called core matt but ................... i could be wrong . I have to say that over the years i have seen so many Panthers falling thru the cracks because of de lamination . But..................... enough of that my panther with 420's , TRS drives , ran 65 , all day long and my Panther also was an 86 .

You mean a Cat (Nor-tech,Skater,MTI) V`s are SLOW

. . . . . sell the Panther and get an Apache

I had a 78 30' Scarab with about the same HP engines 468's. Topped out at about the same 72-74 mph. I installed a small set of 177 B&M blowers, I had to go from 23P to a 27P set of 3 blades and got a top speed of 84mph at 5400rpm. I think you need to bump up the HP to gain some more speed. I have a pair of B&M 250's available if your interested. The 468's are also available too. I was going to use the bigger 250's on them but decided to build a pair of 540's instead.

Well I did have your boat running about 90 mph back in the late 1990's so maybe you're onto something... But then I remember all the work it took....

That worked!

and then rebuid the motors in the apache and then raise the x dim and then rebuild one of your motors again and then...see the cycle lol

It never ends bro, it never ends!!!!