Way2slow

With one of my modified (over 325 hp) motors, mine will do 81.7 gps with two people and gear. My motor on a friends Bullet would push his 94.3 gps. The are a number of boats, Bullet's and Allison's with modified motors that will run in the 90's and a few with highly modified (race engines) that will run in the 100's. Paul Nichols, Bullet test driver using an Engine from Jay Smith Racing Engines making close to 400 hp and turning over 10,000 rpm did 117 in a 20' Bullet. With a stock 225, I know of none of them that will run in the 90's and doubt you could get there with a stock 250. However, "SAFE", not exactly! My old, heavy Javelin R20 is a handfull at 80 mph, those bass boat, hyro-rockets that weigh less than 1,000 pounds are not for you average, everyday boat driver.

For a long time the Optimax's had the nickname Opti-Pops The Evinrude ficht's and early Rams also had bad reputations. I have a friend in California that sells Evinrudes and Yamaha's and he hated the HPDI's. I don't think many of the first of the big four strokes faired much better. I know of a number of Verado's that went to a few powerheads their first couple of years. The problem is, they could only have a 5% failure rate but with the internet the way it is now, 1% of those 5% get on here and complain, and it starts snowballing. 100 people complain and two million read about or heard about what a piece of junk they are and start using those complaints as a bases for all of them to be bad. Yes, with new technology you're gonna have startup problems, the early ficht was considered junk by many (even though I luv mine) and yet the E-tec is considered one of the best motors on the market. Basiscally, it's still the same motor with the bugs worked out and some redesigned internals. I would try to stay away from the first few production years of any of them, they were rushed to market with what I call consumer testing. We bought, ran it till it broke and when enough of the same problems occured, they fixed that problem in later production models. We just paid the bill for their product testing. Oh, and don't think when problems were identified, they are going to do recalls or fix those problems. If it's not a serious safety item, they are going to play like your's is the only one that ever had that problem. Even though, the new parts you have to pay for are going to have a different part number and you may have to buy a whole, high dollar modification kit to make the new part fit because the old, original style part is no longer available.

For the 45 years I've been registering boats in GA, you've never been able to walkin and register. For the longest, it was mail in only, it's only been in recent history you could even call or go on line to do your renewal. Now, the notorized bill of sale is a new one on me. It has been five years since I last registerd a boat but I've always just filled out the green registration form and attached the previous owners registration card along with my $35 check and a few weeks later I would get everything back in my name. This time of the year it may take a full month to get it back.

You might want to double check, I think with an initial registration or transfer, it MUST be mailed in. You fill out the green form, mail it with your $35 check (or what ever the current fee is now) and keep the bottom the bottom portion of the form as your temp reg. Takes about three weeks to get your card back.

Over temp will give an alarm so I seriously doubt it's over temp. It sounds more like a fuel or electrical problem but I know very little about black motors and have never seen under the cover of their four strokes so I'm not even going to try and guess your problem. A fuel starvation problem will usually run all day on the hose but not on the lake. Without the motor under a load, it's only taking a few percent of the amount of fuel to make rpm that it takes when pushing the boat. The nice part about it being a four stroke, the dealer is about the only one that's going to have the computer interface to check it out. I would replace the fuel, make sure it's getting good fuel flow from the tank to the motor and change the filter. If that doesn't work, be prepared to spend the big bucks and be without it for a few weeks.

You want to hear something that totally sucks, right after posting this last post, my wife wanted me to take her to a storage unit we have. She pulls the van to the front door and we load up the stuff she wants to take. I drive about a mile to the storage, unload the stuff, go to start the van to leave and the frigging battery was DEAD! She then says it seemed a little slow to crank at the house. This is a three year old 70 month battery. Just as I was getting ready to walk back and get my truck, a guy happens to show up that had a jump box and got me going. In the batteries defense, while driving back the volt meter was only show about 12 volts so it appears the altinator has gone out but I was soo ticked when I got home, I haven't bothered to check it yet. I rarely drive this van so it could have just been low too long and sulphated. Guess I'll have to check that one tomorrow.

I had a guy tell me the biggest bass he ever caught was while listening to his favorite rock band. However, if anyone turns a radio on in my boat, they had better know how to swim because they and their music is going into the lake real fast.

The boat should be positioned on the trailer so the tongue weight on the trailer is at least 10% of the total weight, some say 20% but I've never run that much tongue weight and never had a problem with sway. If the tongue weight is too light, or hitch is too high, you will have a problem with the the trailer swaying. The bunks/skids need to extend all the way to the transome and just a little past to fully support the hull. You may cause a hook in the hull if the transome is not support. So, get you tounge weight right and then install longer bunks if needed to support the boat.

If it opens and cell and just quits conducting, normally nothing, other than your stranded. That is what happens when you drive to the store, come back out and the car is dead, won't even spin the starter over. Where the problem comes in is when a battery won't fully charge and the charging system is pumping with all it's got to try and charge it. The prolonged load on the charging system can burn out the altenator in a car and the rectifier/regulator or stator, or both in an outboard. This can also happen when you jump off a dead battery and use the charging system to charge it. Outboards are very prone to burn out because their charging system are nowhere near as robust as a vehicles. Anyway, either one is going to several hundred dollars to repair. The other problem in either you car or boat, connecting jumper cables usually create an arc that has the potential to zap/damage some very high dollar electronics. Because of the risk involved, plus just down right being stranded (been there, done that and don't plan on it happening again) and having seen too many times the burned out parts the create, I just prefer to swap out my cranking batteries every three years and no more than four years. Granted, my neighbors love it. I'm still running a battery in my welder I took out of my wifes Camery three years ago. One neighbor is still running two in some old equipment he has I gave him a couple of years ago. Dirty/bad connections at the battery can be just as detrimental as a bad battery.

I just posted on your 12V sourse post before I saw this one, read it. That is one of the dumbest things you can do to your battery. The number of charge cycles is what the base a batteries life on. This is normally based on draining a battery down to 30% and recharging it to 100%. Your over the counter TM batteries will usually have 180 - 250 charge cycles, depending on the type and grade alloy they use. Your Wal-Mart batteries are going to be on the 180 end, your Trojans, Deka's, and a few other top brands are going to be on the 250 end of the scale. Drain a battery below 30% and you shorten the number of charge cycles, drain it all the way down and you greatly shorten the number because the plates start flaking. On the other end, only drain one to 50% and you will almost double the charge cycles and that count increase the less the battery is discharged. At the same time, it's not recommnend to recharge a battery that is still at 85% or greater charge (however, if it's going to be a while before I use it again, I charge it anyway). A battery left 24 hours at an 80% or lower state of charge will start to sulphate. As for replacing batteries every 2 - 3 years, I would never swap my TM batteries out that soon unless I was fishing the pro circuit where I was charging them a couple of hundred times a year. I have always averaged 5 - 6 years from Trojans and Deka batteries. Even then the batteries have only just started to degrade. Now, with that said, I never run cranking batteries but three years, that's not only in my boat, that's in all my vehicles. I alway buy the biggest, baddest, cranking battery I can get and they usually have a 70 month or more life rating but I replace them every three years. They are just too cheap for the problems they can cause when they all of a sudden decide to die. A bad cranking battery can be the most expsensive battery you could ever own, boat or auto. The biggest asset to long battery life is a high quality charge, and I'm yet to find a $50 or less charger that's worth a darn. Almost all cheap chargers are going to charge at more than 15.3 volts, the absolute max you should ever put into a flooded cell battery.

I don't get into a lot of these battery discussions because of the crap that gets started by those that "THINK" they know, but I do wish all these people saying TM batteries need to be at a 2 amp/slow, trickle charge rate would get themselves educated on batteries. Charging a flooded cell, lead acid battery at that low of a rate is actually harmfull to the battery and you will never get it fully charged. By industry standards, 10 amps is considered a slow rate, 2 amps or slower is considered a trickle charge. I know of no deep cycle trolling motor battery made that would need to be charged at less than eight amps. 8, 10, and 12 amps are your most common amp requirements for Deep cycle TM batteries (10% of the batteries rated amphour capacity is the recommended charge rate). Also, this stuff about running a battery all the way down and then slow charging back at 2 amps is total hog wash. This is absolutly doing about as much harm to your battery as you can do. The only other two things that can damage it any worse is to run it out of water and over charge it to where it gets hot. As for charging off your vehicle, First off, you can charge your deep cycle TM battery at 35 - 40 amps to 80% charge, (as long as it does not generate too much heat in the battery) then the amps need to be droped to a much lower rate to finish it off. I've never measured how many amps a vehicle will dump into a battery (might try to do that this weekend) but if you only ran it off a #10 or #12 wire, I doubt it will be too great. You have to remember, it will be connected in parallel to your vehicle battery so the altinator is only going to see a partial disharge load from you TM battery and is not going to be trying to crank max amps into it. Then as it gets closer to full charge, that amp load is going to drop way off. The more I think about it, if I get a chance this weekend I'm going to measure what kind of charge rates you get and will post it. I have the equipment to easily do this, just a matter of getting the time.

I just ran into a problem. Dug out the old 25 hp motor and there is no lower unit on it, which is where the prop was suppose to be. I'm in the process off building another storage shed to move a lot of that junk to so maybe this weekend I will find the LU. It has been so long, I may have given it away but I don't remember it, (of course as bad as I have CRS that doesn't mean a thing).

Wide Open Throttle (WOT) Heat soak, The heat in the engine cause the fuel to evaporate from the crankcase so when you try to crank it, there is no fuel in the case. You prime it and it gets a shot of fuel to start but it's still starving for fuel, that's why it dies when you give it gas, pressing the primer when starting off give it a healthy dose of fuel so it takes off and goes. Dirty carbs will give a very similar situation. Idle needles set too lean or mid range orfices create a lean condition that will make one bogg real bad coming out of the hole.

A five year old cranking battery, don't bother with it, get a new. That can be the most expensive battery you could ever own when it burns out your rectifier/stator. A good cranking/dual purpose battery is generaly less than $100. As for brands, I like Deka batteries, they are great batteries and I get them wholesale. I think DieHard, Interstate or any of the other major brands are ok.

Two blade props give you the most speed but are the worst for weeds and moss. Three blade are an inbetween prop, not as much speed as a two but pull a little harder and better in the weeds, pads and moss. Four blade are the best for the weeds etc, and but give you the least amount of speed

There are a few things that can cause the problem. Doubt it would be fuel pump, that usually causes surging at WOT when it starts going bad. Link and Sinc and idle screw adjustments can cause it. Dirty carbs can also cause the problem. Heat soak is a very common cause and once it starts from heat soak, they usaully can be hell to cure. As for the StaBil, I've never used it, I only use SeaFoam, so can't give you any info on StaBil.

I think the Maxximizer is only rated for about 30 amps so he would have to disconnect when he started adding much more than about half power. It does have overload protection with a red indicator but I wouldn't want to depend on that to save it everytime. However, they are great for what you are wanting to do, you just have to remember no to over power it. I have one I've been using since they first came out in the mid 80's on an old MinnKota 28 (also from the mid 80's) and still one of the best buys I ever made.

Could be heat soak. Have you tried pressing the key in to prime it as you are starting off?

Now you've got me. I've never worked on a motor that old but those compression numbers seem way too low. I once had a 1965 18 hp fast twin and it had a compression of 135 pounds on each cylinder, and that was after it was 13 years old. The early model motors had a lot more compression than modern day motors because the cheap, regular gas back then was better than our best high octane we have now. I'm not even sure what lower unit that motor has but I'm pretty sure I have an old 9" pitch prop (if I can find it) that fit my old 18 fast twin. I will give that one to you if it will fit. The 18 FastTwin was the same motor as the 25 Johnson back then so it would have to have that size LU. BRP parts only goes back to 1968 so I could not research it.

Are you trying to run a short shaft motor on and 20" transome? The anticavitation plate should not be much more than an inch or so above the bottom of the transome.

Sounds like you have the motor too high on the transome. A banged up prop will add to the problem also. If your'e running lots of rivers and constanly banging the prop you may want to stick with the aluminum and keep a spare. The Stainless will perform a lot better but it cost a whole lot more to get repaired and it's a lot more likely to damage the LU internal parts Maintenance depends on how often you use it. Water pump should be replaced every three years. LU lube changed every six months and grease any fittings. If it sits long periods between use, fog motor and drain carbs and purge fuel system.

It would take a way bigger pot than you could ever fit in the motor. Even if it was only pulling 2 amps at the low setting, it would take a 25 watt resistor to keep the pot from going up in smoke.

I would not guess if a seven inch pitch prop would be better or not. I don't know what size you have now and how bad the motor is loading down. All my 9.9's have been Johnson's and I've never run less 9 inch pitch. My 87 9.9 with a 9" prop will plane a 1642 jon with a pretty good load in it. If your motor is one of those off brands like a Game Fisher etc, it may never make enough torque to plane a heavy boat.

Depends on how good of a charger you have, the quality of the battery to start with, how deep you discharged them, and how well you have kept them charged and maintained. Life of a battery is not measured in time, it's measured by charge cycles. That can be 150 to over 1,000, and that's all base on the first sentince. I just took batteries out of the boat I leave at the lake because they had gotten to where they only reach 1.255 specific gravity and were loosing power after about five hours use. The date codes on these batteries were 2002. The ones in my Javelin are dated 2/2005 and still charge to 1.280 and run all day with no problems.

If it had the stud and the lead post, just go buy an adapter that lets you put a stud mount on the lead post. Bad/loose connection is what caused your meltdown. Could have also been the criped on connector on you TM so be sure to check/replace that or you may do the same thing to your new battery.