What's up all,

I just purchased and took delivery of a 2008 Fountain Lightning with 496HO Staggered motors with 5 blade 32 Maximus propellers on Short Sport Masters. Boat only has 175Hours and is beautiful. Blue hull.

Though I seem to be having trouble getting this boat on plane quickly and sometimes staying on plane is a challenge when I slow down. Is this normal and just a learning curve? The propellers seem to cavitate quickly and don't catch grip. Eventually I get her going but it just doesn't seem normal that it takes a lot of work. Prior to me picking up the boat the props were fresh out of the machine shop.

Any info will help, thanks.

32's sound way big for HO's.. have you tried getting on the throttle for a few seconds, quick back off then on again when the wave catches you and pushes u up on plane.. ride your own wake

32s seem way to big to me too for HOs. You don't say what size Fountian it is.

It takes some practice ,try different tab and drive settings and like class6 said if you can get a push that helps . I have best luck with the drives out a couple from tucked and tabs a couple up from down.
Still have to creep up to where I can feel it's gonna slip then bring the rpms to 3200 .....wait...... as it catches bring the tabs and drives down and in ......... if you think this is fun , get used to 5 blades then throw some 4 blades on and start all over
I put 100 pounds of sand in the bow for half the first year and it helped quite a bit

Sorry, it's a 35 Lightning. These are the props that came from fountain and are on the performance report from fountain as well.

They probably "labbed" some of the cup out of the props.

Yeah...I bet

Some of the 496 ho exs had 32 4 blades from the factory. Different drive ration. High drives and big wheels don't make for a boat that comes on top fast. Tuck the drives and tabs and roll in easy she should fall over.

A lot of the side by side 35's with 496's were rigged with 1.65 gear ratio. I have no experience with a staggered 496 boat but sounds like there is a good possibility it is also running a 1.65 ratio.

It is not uncommon for staggered high x-dimension boats to have a difficult time coming on plane. They almost all take some patience, you can't just gun it out the hole or the props will break loose. Now if you find yourself in conditions where the boat will just physically not come on plane using proper technique then you may want to try a set of 6 blades

My recommendation is to find someone that has experience running these types of boats, let them run the boat and see what their opinion is on it.

I have a 42. Same thing. Put your tabs to about 5. Drives tucked all the way in. Once the props break loose let it rev to about 3500 and slowly start bringing the tabs back up. Try that seems to work well with my set up.