I am new to bass fishing, and have a question about a couple bass boats I am looking at.

Both are 2001 Tritons one is 19 ft and the other is 20 ft.

I really am after a 20 ft boat but the 19 ft boat has a newer 2011 175hp Mercury. The 20 ft has a 225 hp Mercury, low hours, not certain how many hours yet. So I would like to hear your advice on if it's reasonable to go with the older motor and get the extra foot length or the new motor just makes so much more sense that's there's no question what to do.

The 19' is under powered. You might want to take that into consideration.  You will want to do a compression test on whichever boat you decide on.  An on the water test drive is also a must.

Underpowered good to know. Yes I have read about compression test and plan to have that done. Thanks J Francho!

 

The hours and how well it has been maintained and how it was stored (indoors or outdoors) is what I consider more important.

Unless you do a test drive and can get it into a dealer and have it checked out, you are buying a pig in a poke, you don't know what you are getting until you start using it.

Thanks Way2slow. Yeah I'm planning to be real careful. I can't afford a loser. Any idea on the compression numbers. Guess a mechanic will let me know.

It's way more important they be within 5% of each other, and that on a warmed engine.  Different gauges can give different numbers, unless you do a leakdown test.  That's the more accurate test.  Leakdown measures the amount of air escaping from the combustion chamber and is a percentage, so the is very little room for error.  It uses two matched gauges on a manifold.  100 psi is set as the input, it passes through a .040" orifice into the cylinder with piston at TDC.  Any leakage by the rings etc. is going to cause a drop in the pressure on the second gauge that's on the cylinder side of the manifold.  Again, that magic number should be no more that 5% on a warm engine.

On the newer motors, the ECM usually tracks the hours and the dealers diagnostic software should give you that. 

If a cylinder is low,yow can squirt some oil in it to see if it's the rings or head.  If its the rings, the oil helps seal them and the numbers go up.  If they remain low, there's a probably a problem on top, head gasket, valves if four stroke etc,

For what it cost to run one now, unless they are doing a lot of tournament fishing, I don't think many are doing all that running they used to.

On 10/23/2017 at 4:18 PM, Way2slow said:

It's way more important they be within 5% of each other, and that on a warmed engine.  Different gauges can give different numbers, unless you do a leakdown test.  That's the more accurate test.  Leakdown measures the amount of air escaping from the combustion chamber and is a percentage, so the is very little room for error.  It uses two matched gauges on a manifold.  100 psi is set as the input, it passes through a .040" orifice into the cylinder with piston at TDC.  Any leakage by the rings etc. is going to cause a drop in the pressure on the second gauge that's on the cylinder side of the manifold.  Again, that magic number should be no more that 5% on a warm engine.

On the newer motors, the ECM usually tracks the hours and the dealers diagnostic software should give you that. 

If a cylinder is low,yow can squirt some oil in it to see if it's the rings or head.  If its the rings, the oil helps seal them and the numbers go up.  If they remain low, there's a probably a problem on top, head gasket, valves if four stroke etc,

For what it cost to run one now, unless they are doing a lot of tournament fishing, I don't think many are doing all that running they used to.

 

 

What do you mean by running? Running engine or test?

Running long distance WOT was my take on it.