Way2slow

I've used something like this the drag just about anything one could want behind a bass boat. http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_100250_225016000_225000000_225016000_225-16-0 Just make sure you check your state laws. In GA, you have to have a rear view mirror or and observer sitting sitting in the boat. You also have to have a life jacket in the boat for the person you a towing around.

I run a two stroke, 25 merc on my Lowe 1436 when I'm in clean water. I run a 9.9 Johnson in rivers with lots of limbs and logs I'm subject to hit. I run a 4 hp merc when I'm in areas that I know I will never be able to open it up. I agree that a four stroke might be a bit heavy on the back of it though.

As I first mentioned, the very first thing you need to get is a good jackplate. On most boats you can get a 6" plate on without having to change steering and control cables, however, that's not all boats. You shop around and find a good 6" Detwiler or other good brand for $150. If your steering cables will give you the slack, that's the best $150 you can spend. If you have to go to longer steering cables, a pair of those can cost close to $300, and that's you installing them. No way on gods green earth is an aluminum prop going to give you the performance a good stainless prop will. The blades are simple not strong enough to keep from flexing under a load. Also, your standard stainless, made in the same shape as the aluminums, are only general purpose props, they will not give you the lift you are looking for to get the hull up.

I would strongly try and discourage you from just buying a Stainless prop. They are expensive and there are many different kinds. You should try any prop before you buy. Some stainless won't give you any more speed increase than an aluminum. I'm not up on merc props but you should look at a three blade, high rake prop first. These will give you more bow lift to help get the nose up and the hull running on the back part of the pad. The more hull you can get out of the water, the faster you're going to run. Just to give you an example of the difference a prop can make, my Javelin R20 runs 72.3 mph with a stock 26" Raker. With a custom tuned 26" raker by Bob Lipton, it runs 76.8. With a stock four blade renegade, it runs 70.1 mph. Most dealers will let you try before you buy or have demo props. If all that fails, get on some of the sites and start asking others about you same rig and see what works best on theirs. Of course, you may have to sort through the junk because not many people get into optimal setup with the smaller boats/motors like the guys running the big rigs and big V-6's.

Port map is not something you can just swap out, that's how they refer to the porting of the cylinders port height and width. That has to be changed with a die grinder. Yes, hydro foils do work for getting on plane, but that's about all. They can greatly improve the hole shot.

I'm not much on the mercs but when you say it's a 90 Thunderbolt, I'm guessing you're talking about a late 60's - early 70's. If so, back then 135 was about the max hp from their race motor. It's possilbe you could change out the front half (carbs, intake and reeds) to that of a similar hight hp motor and make it that size motor, but only if they both have the same port map. Usually, when you get the lowest hp rated motor for a given CC size, it's very common the only thing they did was put smaller carbs and intakes on them to restrict airflow to limit hp. Sometimes they will have a different port map. For instance, the merc 2.5, V-6 is the same bore and stroke motor used from 200 hp to their 300hp race motor. The 200/225's are steel sleeved motors with a conservative porting and intake system that makes peak hp around 5,600 rpm and designed to turn no more than 6,000 so they can get a heavy boat up and on plane . The 260 - 300 are ported to turn way more rpm, up to 8,500. However, they would have a hard time getting a heavy bass boat on plane, but will make an Allison or Bullet fly. A given size motor can only make so much power, it just depends on where you want that power, up high or down low, you have to increase rpm to increase HP. Heavy boats need it down low. Lighter boats can take advantage of more raidical porting and increased rpm. Low end torgue gets them up and moving, top end rpm makes HP for more speed. It's the old robbing Peter to pay Paul when you start modifing. Robbing too much from Peter and paying Paul, pretty soon makes for a sore Peter and it's hard to have fun with a sore Peter.

Being a 115, merc or johnny rude, there's not much room for any big power gains. You can spend a lot of money trying and gain a couple of mph. Then you have the downside of modifing a motor, you will loose bottom end power (holeshot) to gain more top end horse power. There are very few things you can do without pulling the motor down and having someone that knows how, go through through porting it. This is something that has to be done by someone very knowledgeable, a few thousands off in the wrong way and you will end up with a piece of junk. The big V-6's, like the 3.0 Johnson have room for big gains, 300 hp is easily gained from a 200/225 3.0 motor, but thats not the case with the smaller motors. You will see much more bang for the buck if you work on your setup, starting with a jackplate to get the motor back a suitable distance for the length hull and lets you get the prop set to the best height (finding the sweet spot). Then you work on finding the best prop suited for your hull. A stainless steel is a must, then it's finding out if you need a high rake prop (which usually works best on most bass boats) and getting a pitch that lets the motor turn at it's max rated rpm with your normal load. Spend $1,000+ on modifications and get 2-3 mph. Spend a little less on jackplate and prop and possibly gain 6-7 mph with a little work dialing it in. Now, this is based on the hull design, some hulls hit their threshold and all the hp and setup in the world will only show minimal gain.

First this you need to do is a compression check Dirty carbs will cause the problem Bad VRO/Fuel pump can cause it, you will need to do a fuel pressure check to make sure the pump is maintaining at least 5psi The linc and sinc could be off, make sure the roller on the throttle cam has not come appart and the outer section missing, should be about 3/8" in diameter is whole and will be about a 1/4" is the outer part is gone. A misfire for any reason; plugs, plug wires, bad coil, bad power pack, bad timer base, or bad stater. If you don't know how to check these parts, be prepared to spend bunches of money at a shop. A damaged prop can cause it.

I've run nothing but Lowrance for many years and they have a keel offset you can program to compensate for the Xducer not being on the surface. Might want to check for that feature on yours.

The major problem with the carburated 60 degree V-6's (150) is about half of the blocks crack where the voltage regulator mounts and lets water in either #1 or #2 cylinder. This blows the engine because it melts a hole in the piston. They also have some problems with the O-rings loosing seal and letting water into cylinders, again, the creats a melted piston. What caused it to blow? could have been one of the above problems. Could have been as simple as a dirty carb that leaned it out and melted it. OMC's are also known to have powerpacks that go bad and start double firing. This will melt a hole in the center of the piston also. Could have been the first builder didn't do everything he should have and it finally let go. I pulled an X-flow motor apart once that I didn't think could have run a season the way someone resleeved one cylinder, (they actually put sealant around it and pushed it in). The guy that owned the motor bought if from the shop that repaired it and said it had been running seven years like that.

If it's an aluminum prop, since they are not a performance prop to start with, you probably will never notice it. Just make sure it didn't roll the edge some, that will hurt more than anything. If it's a 70mph boat, running a high performance SS prop, then you would see some speed loss.

Most of the push in and twist plugs I've seen are only rated at 30 amps, that 70# Tm is probably going to be close to 60 amps. One of the first things I do is take those things off and throw them in my junk pile. I would suggest you get two of these http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/3BY20?Pid=search

The smallest I would look at would be a 1442 and even with that, you will have to be care full getting in and out. I have a 1436 and one has to be carefull if you need to move around in it. I'm 6' 210#. Another thing you have to figure, the smaller the boat, the smaller the horse power rating and the narrower the hull. You will run into a serious problem getting on plane with a small boat/motor combination, an really serious problem if you have two in the boat. As for towing, you will be hard pressed to strain most anything with the average jon boat. 500 - 750 pounds would be about the max tow weight you would have to worry about with a jon. You could pull that with a moped if you wanted.

What size cable is in the boat? For a 12V 74# thrust, you must have at least #6 or larger.

If it doing it just when the motors running, probably water pressure guage hose. If doing it only when boat is moving, probably the speedo hose.

I have two of the SoSpends that sold for about $170 a few years ago at BPS and water/moisture will not set them. It's not the moisture that triggures them it's the sudden micro amount of difference in atmospheric pressure that's cause when it's submerged a few inches under water that triggers them. I've been running down the lake in the rain many times with one on and it's yet to go off. Mine has never gone off but one time and that was when my granddaughter, seeing me wearing it all the time in the boat, thought is was a nice slim life jacket, got it out of the boat, put it on and jumped in the pool. She said it scared the crap out of her when she hit the water. She now has her own but she was under 10 then and they are not legal in GA for anyone under 10.

They should have the number somewhere along the plastic cover. The last two digits should be the length. http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/search.do?freeText=teleflex%20steering%20cable&page=GRID&engine=adwords!6456&keyword=teleflex_steering_cable To replace them can be H E double L. You may have to remove the engine, to get them out of it. If you have dual tanks on your tank is on the right side, it may have to come out. Getting them out of the gunwall can be trouble because sometimes they can be tie-wrapped to hangers or have electical cables wrapped in with them. Tie some nylon strong nylon cord, like cloths line, to each one as you pull them out so you will have something to pull them back through with. Pull from the rack end and wrap the nut's on motor end with duct tape and some sort of filler, like paper towels, so it has a nice tapper to slide by everything easier. It helps if you have two people, because sometimes you have to pull back as you pull to work it out.

If I was doing it and going to run straight 24 volts, I would parallel the two negative and two positive cables and install a pair of these http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/search.shtml?searchQuery=3by20&op=search&Ntt=3by20&N=0&sst=subset

It's just too bad you didn't have someone suggest going ahead and converting to hydraulic steering instead of replacing the cables. It only cost a little more and is sooooo much better.

What's the voltage on your battery? Are you running it of the cranking battery or the TM battery) To eleminate bad connections, run a negative and positive wire directly from the cranking battery to the depth finder negative and positive. If it works that way, then start checking a cleaning all negative and positive connections from the depth finder to the battery. The reason for doing both, either one can cause the problem. My bow mounted depth finder will never show over 11.9 volts, while the boats battery indicator and the console mounted depth finder shows 12.7 and 14 with motor running. There is a bad connection somewhere in the wires going to the bow but it's still working and I haven't felt like chasing the problem down. You probably have a similar problem, just gotta check and clean until you find it.

Voltage has nothing to do with what size wire you use, only the type insulation on the wire. The current load and length determines the size wire. A 24V 50# thrust TM can use half the guage wire as a 12V 50# thrust because the 24V will pull half the current the same size 12V motor will.

I'm not saying it wouldn't hurt but I've never run one. My DFI Evinrude has a factory installed filter/seperator but other than that, I don't run anything else. When I take the Evinrude off and put one of my hotrod motors on, I don't use one. If I were to have a water/trash problem, I would clean the tank. You will never get enough condensation inside you're built in tank to ever have to worry about it. If water gets in there, it came from the gas pumps or some other source, not condensation. I've been buying gas for vehicles since 1962 and trust me, I have on several occassions had the pumps put water in my tanks, so that does happen

The recommended charge rate of your deep cycle battery is 10% of it's rated amphour capacity. If you have a group 27, 105 Ah battery, that would be a 10 amp charger. If you put another like battery in parallel with it, that effectively makes it a 210 Ah battery, so to properly charge it, you would want a 20 amp charger. If you charge them with the same charger you have, it will take twice as long to charge the two as it did the one. If your onboard is one of those undersized 5/6 amp chargers to start with, that's the same as saying it will now be a 2.5/3 charger. That's no more than a trickle charge, and over time your batteries will become more and more stratified, which will eventually ruin the batteries.

As mentioned, connected in parallel, you will be running off both batteries and they will both drain down and charge back as one big battery. I WOULD NOT install a switch to select which battery to run on and just run on one at a time. You will get noticably more run time drawing off both batteries at the same time. Let me also clarify my statement about having the same problem of not enough run time when you go to a series circuit. If you go with the same trust 24 volt motor with the same two batteries in series, as you have with your 12V motor and the two batteries in parallel, you will get approx the same run time. Basically, both are going to burn about the same amount of watts. What I was assuming is you will be going with a higher thrust 24V motor which will have a higher current draw, this will increase wattage usage and therefore, reduce runtime. That's why I said be carefull going with group 24 batteries, if you run you're TM long and hard, two group 24's on a much larger thrust 24V motor might come up short in the run time department.

If you're going to be converting to a 24 volt system later in the year, it would be better to go ahead and buy both batteries and connect them in parallel as you mentioned. When you upgrade to the 24 system, the batteries will need to be connect in series. Series batteries need to be the same type, size and age (have close to the same number of charge cycles on them (no more than 25 cycles difference)). If you buy one now, you would have to replace it again with two matching batteries when you upgrade, so save yourself that money and buy both now. To answer your question, you will get a little over twice the run time with the two batteries in parallel than with just one battery. If one gives you 3 1/2 hours, two will give you a little over seven hours. Remeber though, when you go to a larger 24 volt motor, you may be back in the same situation running the group 24's. Typically, group 24's are no larger than 75 - 80 Ah, group 27's are approx 105 and 30/31's 110 - 130.