What prop is best for my boat?

[cadillacknals]

Bought a 2000 Maxum 1900 SR with the 5.0 Mercruiser, has a Orgin Waketower on it. took it to the lake last week and noticed it takes long to plane out, with one person wakeboarding and 4 more in the back of the boat it does not plane out, without the wakerborder and just 4 people in the back it takes a couple of minutes to plane out, with all the passengers in the fron it only takes about 10 secs. any ideas what prop shuld be used on this boat? i was recomend a 15 pitch but id love to hear more ideas

[wiigelec]

The best prop is the one that gets you in the WOT rpm range of the engine at WOT.

What is the wide open throttle rpm of your engine, it should be posted on the nameplate on the engine? What is your current rpm at WOT? What is your current prop?

It could just be that your engine doesn’t have enough hp for the loads you are submitting it to. But there are other factors as well. How are you trimming the outdrive while planing out? Is it trimmed all the way in?

[fester]

I was in somewhat the same position.

What you want is a 4 blade propeller and pitch that gets close to your engines highest recommended RPM at WOT (full throttle). You can get that max value from your engine manual. I have a 4.3 Mercruiser and its Max WOT RPM is between 4400-4800RPM. The prop is a stainless solas, 4 blade, 17 Pitch and that gets me to 4600RPM. It has plenty of power for wakeboarding with 5-6 people onboard without any issues. A 5.0 should crush this :-) The 4 blade gives you more holeshot, which gets you onto plane faster which is especially necessary for towing and watersports.

If you can afford it, go for a stainless steel prop as you get more "grip" than flex in the water. If you are a novice at boating recommend sticking with Aluminum for now as stainless steel is vastly more expensive. If you hit anything on a lake etc there will be tears.

When was the engine last serviced? and any marine growth at the bottom of the boat?

[cadillacknals]

Engine plate shows MAX WOT RPM 4600-5000
I found a 15x15 RH 4 Blade Powertech ELE4 Stainless Steel Propeller and put it on the boat to try it out, same result or maybe even a bit worse, When it finnaly got to the plane out point it started jumping up in the front even with the trim all the way down and i tried moving it up a bit but same thing

I looked a the engine plate and its says its LH rotation, dos this mean i need a LH Prop? sad thing is it came without a prop when i bought it and ive been trying props on it without knowing if i need a RH or LH

Did the engine service myself in January this year and not marine growth on the boat

[cadillacknals]

ended up putting smart tabs on the boat, issue fixed

[Mr Hemi]

The hardest part on the drivetrain is getting onto plain.
The quicker the better.
My 2002 had same problem.
Dropping a pitch changed my boats performance.
I have same motor in a bigger boat.
Loosing top speed is better than making your motor work hard.

If your boat cant get up on plane without trim, i still think you are over propped??

[shrew]

The only way to tell if you're over propped or under propped is to get to Wide Open Throttle (WOT) and then using drive trim, click out as far as you can go without cavitating or porpoising.

At this point, you're goal is to get to the max rpm of the engine (4400 - 4800).

If you're under that range, you can drop pitch (1" = 200 rpm increase)

If you're over that range, increase pitch (1" = 200 rpm decrease)

Yes, as stated going too high in pitch will potentially increase load.