Way2slow

That's going to depend on location and system. Mine is WAAS capable, which normally works better the farther south you get and I commonly get 13 - 16 feet. I've never seen mine at less that 9 feet.

A group 27, 30 or 31 dual purpose should work just fine for you. I've been running the 27 DP on my Evinrude 225 DFI motor for seven years and it's never missed a beat. Note: Not the same one, just the same size, I always replace the cranking batteries every three years in every boat and vehicle I own. Batteries are too cheap to put up the the problems one creates if it desides to die an early death.

That's gonna depend on the size jon and what part of the river. There are area's a 12ft jon with a 5hp would do fine, then there are places that will get you killed. A 1436 with 9.9 does well in some areas, and a 25 does better in others (I know, most of those are only rated for 10 - 15 hp). A 1442 with a 25 is a safer bet to get you through a lot of places.

First, you gotta say what kind of motor, they have different functions for different manufactors. For instance, a mercury motor must have 12VDC from the key switch to run. When you turn the key switch on, it applies 12VDC to the motor so it can run. The kill switch disconnects that 12V, the same a turning the key switch off, and shutting the engine down. OMC/BRP motors apply a ground to the ignition module to turn off the motor. Without that ground, you can't shut the engine off. When the key switch is turned on, the ground is removed, when the key switch is turn off, it applies the ground. Their kill switch applies a ground when pulled, shutting the motor off. Don't know how any of the others work because I don't mess with them.

Deka's are from East Penn Manufactoring, a family owned american company. Unless something has changed recently, Trojan's are their own brand and an american company. US Battery is another excellent, american made battery, but they I don't think they market to the public, just OEM.

Non boater, back seater is a great way to learn. You can get seated with some very good basser and paying attention to what they are doing can be worth the time, many times over. Just be dang sure you learn the proper rules/protocall when fishing from the back seat of another guys boat, you start casting to the front and taking his holes and you might find yourself back on the dock real quick. One other point, the boat owners gas bill is a major expense to his tourney fishing (30 - 50 gallons a day is not uncommon on a large lake), the back seater should offer to pay a nice chunk of what the owner used that day. Don't go for a thinking it's a free ride.

Usually, when getting into tournament fishing, you start in a local club. The first step would be to make sure they allow jon's and what the minimum boat requirements are. Clubs that fish a large lakes may not allow anything below 17' because a smaller jon could be very dangerous Might find some electric only, but a lot of those guy's tie up a ton of money in an electric jon. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to discourage you, just do your home work, make sure you have tournaments you can fish with a smaller jon. For me, my 1436 jon is strickly a pond (tank if in Texas) and river boat, not a lake boat. I've never had but one boat that caught a bass, (one jumped in the boat one night fishing shallow coves) so I'm not saying you need a big boat for that. I've probably caught as many bass out of my 17' canoe as any bass boat I've ever owned.

The 5 hp difference is only a minor problem. One of the motors needs a counter rotating prop or the steering torque will be tremendous. One lower unit is left hand rotation, the other right hand rotation.

I solder butt connectors when I need to make a splice. A Benzo-Matic works fine for that, and use rosin core solder. I then use a heat shrink made for battery terminals that has a heavy sealant to seal the joint.

Actually, you should not loosen or take the caps off the battery, that increase water loss during charging. The caps are vented so they will relieve any pressure differences. You should prop open your battery compartment if it's enclosed. My boats is outside under a cover so always stick my marker bouy's under all the covers to hold them open to keep them from sweating and to vent my battery area before I put the cover on.

That because his is an OMC, different system. Also, some of that info was from more than just a few years experience and may not be in the manual. Many times manuals assume you know the basics of what you're doing and only provide the technical aspect of the specific job.

First, 20" pitch prop sounds like way too much prop. Get a tac and check your rpm. I would think and 18 would be closer. I too have a friend that has the 17' Tracker (about sever years old) with a 90 and 43 - 45 is about all he can get. His starts proposing and beats your brains out above that. He's tried about everything in the book and that seems to be the nature of his boat. He checked with several others that have his same rig and they all said the same thing.

The throttle cable should not be used to adjust the idle speed. I would recommend disconnecting the throttle cable before adjusting idle speed. Before going any further with this topic, the idle speed can only be properly adjusted with the boat and motor off the trailer, sitting in the water, and the motor trimed so it's level. You CAN NOT adjust the idle with the engine on muffs, the lack of back pressure can have it idleing at 1,200 - 1,400 rpm. It should be set for and idle rpm of approx 700 rpm while in the water and in gear. Before adjusting the idle, you need to do a full linc and sinc, starting with the carbs. They have to be adjusting so all three butterflys are fully closed and start to open at the same time. Then the cam has to be set so it's strikeing the roller at the index mark. There are screws on the throttle arm that adjust the stops for the trottle arm for the proper WOT stop and closed throttle stop to set the cam/roller contact and a screw holding the roller that you loosen to adjust the roller. Also, make sure you have a whole roller, should be 3/8" or more in diameter with a clear looking shell over a black center. If it only has the black center (approx 1/4" dia) you need to get a new roller first. Only after the linc and sinc is right do you adjust the idle rpm. This is done by adjusting the the timing linkage going from the throttle arm to the timer base under the fly wheel. Only adjust this linkage to set idle rpm, DO NOT touch any of the other screws you have adjust set to get the throttle arm stops adjusted. Timing is the only thing that adjust idle, if you adjust anything else, it will also throw your linc and sinc off you just work so hard to get right. Also, don't not mess with the stop under the other side of the flywheel, this is the max timing adjustment and can only be properly adjusted with the motor above 5,000 rpm and a timing light. If you are doing it on a hose, do all your linck/sinc and then try setting the idle at 1,200 rpm. Sometimes that can get you pretty close when you take it to the lake to make final adjustmet. How you can understand all this, GET A MANUAL. Only after doing all this do you connect the throttle cable. Then you adjust it so it's pulling the the throttle arm WOT stop to the block, but not pressing it extremely hard against it. The throttle cable should have no affect on the idle speed you have just adjusted. As for trying to use the motors charging system to charge your trolling motor batteries. There are several systems out there that will let you do that but your motor only has a 16 amp charging system. That's not enough to keep the cranking battery fully charged in a bass that's running it's live well pumps and other electronics, unless you're doing a lot more riding than fishing. I would not waste the time of money trying to use it to charge my TM batteries also, it's not going to have enough juice to do that.

If the battery is not fully charged, add just enough distilled water to cover the plates. After the battery is fully charge finish adding water until it touches the indicator ring at the bottom of the fill opening. Never fill and uncharged battery, it's likely to boil over. Never charge a battery with any of the plate area exposed. You should only add distilled water, but it's better to add plain tap water than to charge it with the plates exposed and you don't have distilled water, but get distilled water to finish filling it. The type charger you have will have a lot to do with how often you add water. A good charger will boil very little water out during charges. The cheap, automatic chargers can have you adding water every few charges. If running flooded cell batteries with caps, you should check them at least once a month. Don't take but a few minutes to be sure they are at the proper level

Trojan batteries are very good, but they have gone downhill some over the past couple of years. They also lost their contract with one of the major golf cart manufactors and they are feeling the strain. The Trojan SSC225 still provides more run time than just about any TM deepcycle on the market and they still give a long life cycle. As for the Best battery though, the Deka is a better battery, just doesn't have quite the runtime the SSC225 does. Not everybody needs every second on runtime possible to get thru a days fishing.

Raker II's are fairly new and you may not find good used one for sale in those. Most dealers will give you a price break on the raker II's, I bought one last fall for my son's boat for $425. If you don't want to dig that deep into the piggy bank, find you a good 18" pitch V-4 Raker for $200 - $250. It should do a good give you what you want. Just be sure it's in very good condition, it can cost $175 to have one reconditioned, so you haven't saved a dime if you get a dinged up one. Idle rpm should not change, idle speed should not see a noticable change. I drive on also and run 26" and 28" rakers, and don't have a problem. When I'm wanting to wipe that Cheshire Cat grin off those Triton guy's faces, I run one of my fun motors with a 28" @ about 6,500 rpm. The rest of the time I run my Evinrude DFI motor @ 5,900 rpm and a 26". If you want hole shot, always lean toward the smaller pitch prop. It's always better to over rev a motor a couple of hundred rpm than to load one down a couple of hundred below recommend max rpm. Two stroke motors DO NOT like to be loaded down at WOT. It's just the CrossFlow OMC motors, they can't handle rpms between 5,800 - 6,200. So, on stock motors, stay below that. I would never run a prop that does not let the motor turn the manufactors Max recommended rpm with my normal load. If I'm 200 rpm low, I'm going to a smaller prop. Each pitch change usually gives you about a 300 rpm difference at WOT and as I said, it's better to over rev 100 than to load one down 200.

Forgot something, The Rakers only come in even pitch sizes so you will need to figure out if you want the 18" or 20". The 18" will give better hole shot if it does not rev you over 5,700 rpm. A 20" raker is going to be similar to a 19" aluminum on top end rpm, but will launch out of the hole better Fishing Rhino, if you're spinning over 5,000 rpm and still sitting in the water, you're vent holes are probably too large and allowing too much cavitation. The motor height may not be just right and letting it suck air from the surface, the SE Sport 300 will cure that problem. Especially if you're have a problem with the prop blowing out just as the boat starts to lay over. When I had one of my 300+ hp hotrod motors on my my Stratos 285 Pro, I could not run a stock prop the motor would blow the prop out at layover. The SE Sport 300 would always keep that from happening. I didn't need it with my custom tuned props but the it helped hole shot so much, I'd leave it on anyway. Yes, they do look dorkey as all get out, but it sure did make that 285 come out like it was shot out of a cannon.

First I would get me a Raker II prop. I think you will still be good with a 19" pitch since your rpm is about right. It actually will not hurt the motor if your turn it 5,700 rpm. It will do that all day long with no harm to the engine. Just never run it at a steady rpm between 5,800 and 6,200. Those motors develope a harmonic in that rpm range that can cause the crankshaft to break. The only reason they limit it to 5,500 rpm is that's already about 300 rpm over the peak power band for the porting so turning it any more accomplishes very little. They overturn them a few hundred rpm past the peak so it takes the strain of the engine and gets a little better fuel economy. You've gotta realize, you have a lot of boat and a little motor, it's going to get over loaded very easily. You can launch out of the hole with just you and minimal load but throw a couple of hundred extra pounds and it's going to strugle, sometimes to the point you may have to ask the passanger to step two the front of the boat until it lays over. I think you will pleasantly suprised if you get a Raker II and add the Sport SE 300 hydrofoil. Just the Raker II may give you all you want. The reason I suggest the Raker II is they are vented so it gets the hole shot rpm up higher than the old raker. A vented prop creates a controlled cavitation that lets the motor spin up to 3,500 - 4,500 rpm coming out of the hole. This is where you peak torque band is and the motor pulls a whole lot stronger. With an unvented prop, (most all aluminum and some stainless) the motor gets bogged down at 2,000 - 2,500 and has a hard time making rpm to get above that. Vented props is why you hear big V-6 boats coming out of the hole and it all of a sudden sounds like a turbo charger or something kicks in. If 40 mph is where you're comfortable, that's where you should run. Those that have a 75 mph boat and don't know how to drive it are the ones the get hurt. For me, 60 - 65 is my prefered cruising speed. The boat is very stable, the bow's up and riding nicely, it's up on the pad and just kinda skipping along on the chop. A very comfortable and pleasant ride. When mine starts hitting 70 or more, you have to pay attention and drive, no sitting back relaxing.

Your compression is good. If you let it idle very long while getting back to the ramp a loading, the plugs are going to be black. To check the plugs, you need to be running at WOT for a couple of minutes and then while still holding it at WOT, cut the switch off. Take the cover off, trim the motor all the way up for easy access and then check the plugs. They should be a medium brown color then. 18ft Nitro + 115 = Under powered. Tracker may have only rated that hull for a 115 but that's not enough motor for an 18' boat Are you running a Stainless or Aluminum prop? A stainless steel prop would help bunches, just don't get a four blade Renegade, those motors don't like Renegade props. It's also very easy to have a rolled edge on a prop and it look fine to the eye, but won't come out of the hole for anything. The Sport SE 300 hydrofoil would help a lot also. Make sure you are getting the motor fully tucked in also. If your motor has the trim stop pin to limit how far it trims in, make sure you have it in the most inner position. (I guess it does have power tilt and trim) As for cleaning the carbs, you could have plugged mid jet but don't waste you're money on anything that runs through the carbs to clean them, it's not going to do anything for you. To clean what needs to be cleaned, the carbs MUST come off and be taken apart. Then be sure all orifices are open by using tooth picks or other small objects. If you use numbered drill bits, only use the backs, do not run the cutting end through the orfice, .0005" can cause you problems.

Actually, I don't know the normal selling price of the Deca's. We sell them but our prices are very inflated. Also, since the Deca's distributor is only a few doors up from my shop and I'm pretty good customer of theirs, when I buy my personal batteries, I wait until they get in a load of blems in and get those, at about 1/5 the market price. The main benifit of AGM's is they are maintenance rather maintenance free and can be placed in any position in a virtually unvented compartment. They do have a higher cycle life than most deep cycle batteries but you do give up considerable runtime over similar size flooded cell batteries. In applications were it's difficult to gain access to the batteries or the batteries need to positioned other than face up, I use AGM's. For everything else, I recommend flooded cell batteries. AGM's are very expensive and provide less run time. The additional cycle life of the AGM's does not offset the difference in cost over a quality flooded cell battery. 85% of how much better the AGM's are is all sales pitch. They want you to think they are the greatest thing since slice bread, so they can make those big bucks off them when you don't need one.

Odssey, way over priced, has the least amount of run time, and not that good. Everstart Maxx, cheap battery, but usually gives a couple of years severvice. Good choice for those that don't take care of their batteries Insterstate is a good battery for those listed so far but if you want the best quality, get a DEKA. They don't have quite the runtime of the Trojan's but the DC31 will give all most people could ever need, but if taken care of, they will last a long time. I run the DC31's on the TM and the DP27 for a cranking battery.

As mentioned, you need to use a screw driver that fits the width and thickness of the slot. If they have become too rounded for that, you will first need to get you two new filler screws. Then get you an impact driver (that's one of those hand held devices that look like a massive screw driver) and you hit the back of it with a hammer while twisting on it in the direction to loosen the screws. This will almost always get them out. Heres a link to one just to make sure you know what I'm talking about http://www.google.com/products/catalog?rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS294US294&q=impact+driver&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=5267091445622833585&ei=HWfrS_XFOMKC8gbp66XnBA&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=image&resnum=7&ved=0CFIQ8gIwBg#

Before you epoxy it in place, make sure you find a place that it will work. To do this, make a bowl in the bottom a couple of inches high with some clay, add some water and sit the Xducer in it so it's sitting flat on the bottom and try it. If it works, and is in the spot you want, epoxy it down. I use Marine-Tex but you can probably use JB Weld, that's a lot cheaper and easier to find locally than Marine-Tex

Sand them out and buff it with plastic buffing compound. I start with 1,200 grit and work up to 2,000 grit. Then use something like this http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/1PBF7?Pid=search on a cotton wheel. You might want to practice on a piece of plexiglass before working on the windshield. It's very easy to make it wavey, or burn and discolor it if not done right.

Actually, a "PROPERLY" modified two stroke will get better fuel milage and live longer than a stock motor. The problem is, there are only a few that know how and they are expensive. Most people don't know how to properly build one but think the motors are so simple, anyone can build one, those are the ones the that don't live. I built a 200hp 3.0 Johnson six years ago that's making approx 300hp @ 6300 rpm and pushing a Stratos 201 79 mph with two people, gear and full live well. The motor now has over 500 hours and still going strong. Cruising at 4,600 rpm, it gets 4.6 mpg. That's about as good as a DFI motor will get on that heavy of a boat. Granted now, if you're running a 100 mph Allison, you're probably running 2.5 merc and turning it 8,000+ rpm and the ring life in that's about 100 hours max. I'm assuming that because the merc is much better suited for an Alison and to get 100 mph from it, you're going to be reving the crap out of it. Also, if you keep fresh, 93 octane, you can run those heads, there's just not much room for octane loss if the gas is a month old before you get it.