I have a 2006 Stratos 294 with a ETEC 200 HO on a basic jackplate.  Its only like 3 or 4 inches.  But i noticed that the motor has not been adjusted on the jackplate.  it is at the regular height.  How do i determine if i need to move it up or down to affect my performance?  Thanks for the help!!

First determine what height your prop shaft is at. Do this buy placing a level length ways in the center of the pad and crank the tounge jack up/down until the pad is level. Do all this on a flat, level surface. Now place a level on the motor's anticavitation plate and trim the motor until it's level. Measure from the center of the pad to the surface, then from the center of prop shaft to the surface. The difference between those two measurements is you current prop height. Keep this as your base line so you will know what to come back to if adjustments don't work.

If I had to guess, I would think that's probably a 6" jackplate but it could be less as you said. If your motor is running a Raker, for starters, set the height at 3 1/2". If you do have less than a 6" plate, might want to start at 4 1/2" below the pad. Watch the water pressure, It should not drop below the manufactors recommended minimum, check with the dealer on that, on the earlier motors that's 16 psi. The 3.3 L Ficht and E-tecs run a high volume, low pressure cooling system, I'm not positive what their minimum is and don't want to say what I think it is. Water pressure should never drop below minimum, and I mean never, that's that's even in sharp turns.

During you test runs, watch your water pressure, tac, gps and pay attention to your bow lift. Raise the motor 1/4" at the time, until you see an increase in rpm and no increase in speed, or the water pressure drops below min, or you start loosing bow lift, When any of these happen, drop the motor back down 1/2".

There is a lot of seat of the pants feel you need to be able to recognize when finding that "sweet spot". One key thing is you have to realy understand how the boat is respoinding to trim, It's very easy to overtrim, have a big rooster tail and still see some increase in speed but your setup is not optimum, the motor is using too much power to lift the bow. That's actually wasted power because that's not power being used to generated foward movement. The rooster tail should not be any higher than the top of the motor.

One thing you will probably find, with a stock prop and a small jackplate, you may not get optimum bowlift. Having the a raker prop tuned by one of the good, custom prop turners, is almost mandatory, for optimum peformance. An 8" jackplate may also be required on your boat also. Just check with Stratos before messing trying more offset. They have maximums they willl warrent, anything more and it will void the lifetime warrenty on your hull.

Excellent info.  Thanks for the help!!