Sounds great and welcome!! LOL at Rick and his "too many foomes"!!!

Babylon Hmmmmm. Did You Say Just The Bare Basics, Sound Pretty Good To Me 525/dual Ram Steering/ 380 Tabs. Niceeeee. The Gps With Map Is A No Brainer For New Boaters. I Would Recommend Staying Away From Any Lab Finish Props. The 30,s Like Cup. Run Aground Once In The Great South Bay And You Lab Jub Is Junk. Labbing Thins The Blades Too Much. Back to the motor. Merc gets crazy money for motors. Being from babylon their are lots of great motor builders that can give you more power and save you money. Just to name a few Mcbetts-MRD-JC performance-Zul-Jeff at S&K Speed. All top notch builders who will stand by their work.

ahhh, the good old custom or stock debate... one of my favs.

So far sounds like all the right options... gonna be a sweet ride.

I spent lots of time also with the stock merc vs custom motor debate and my right side beat my left side and the hp525 won, also considered and almost got a 496ho then in the future trick that up but....... as far as props go the boat is going to hit sand, but kinda like top end also... so im still not sure what props gonna go on....... the boat should run good with the new bottom that john and rick have created with any number of props... gonna go with all the imput from all the advice I get from the guys in the know...

Smart choice to go with Merc Racing, the 525 is the work horse of the go fast boats, you should think about mercs Smartcraft system if its in your budget. I have it in my Y2K and I love it. The system ( smartcraft ) tells you every thing on board ( over 80 types of info ).

Your lucky if you see 1-2 on the top end with a lab prop. And your going to also loose some midrange. Stock bravo worked best for me. Never tried a hydromotive. Throttle Up has a new interesting Prop, Called a Barracuda. Looks promising.

You can't go wrong with the Merc products. For sure you could have a custom built engine that would make far more power for the same $$ but...
As far as props, the Bravo one 4 blade and Hydro P5X 5 blade seem to be the props of choice on the Y2K hulls.
Good Luck and welcome to the Superboat family...

I had the bravo one 4-blade on my last boat and their price is reasonable... but the hydromotive P5X would be the prop that I would like (the looks alone are just cause) but as JC says if I want a left prop they are not readily available for testing, this is the prop that I am most interested in comparing... As far as the barracuda prop I dont know that one but Ill definately check into it... Thanks Pat, by the way, this is my second SUPERBOAT, I had a custom 24 that had the deck lenghtened after market ,it was an 80s boat that I about 10 yrs ago for 2 seasons so it is actually a welcome back to superboat

scanned a picture of my first superboat with the lenghtened deck thought it might be interesting

h2o, pretty slick, looks like an excalibur sport.