Cruddy hole shot

[Boedigheimer]

I have 90hp suzuki outboard with a stainless steel, 3 blade prop, not sure of the pitch. I run at about 5200rpm's.

My hole shot is terrible.

Can anybody make any suggestions as to improve my hole shot? More or less pitch? stainless or aluminum? I would be happy to give up some top-end speed if I could improve this. I have tried hydro-fins and it did help some.

And if I could slow my trolling speed (forward idle) which is about 2.6mph at 800rpm's, that would be a bonus.

[PerchJerker]

Dropping down in pitch will raise your rpms and give you more holeshot, at the expense of top end speed. Going to a 4 or 5 blade prop will give you more holeshot and better control at lower to mid-range speeds, at the expense of top end speed.

Both of those should help slow your trolling speed too.

Is your 800 rpms at forward idle accurate, ie. from a digital gauge? If so the idle speed could maybe be dropped also - not sure about that as I am not very familiar with your motor. But as an example my Opti idles in forward at 550 rpms.

Good luck and I hope some of this helps.

[LMITOUT]

What is the pitch of your prop? Is that a 2-stroke or 4?

I dropped down in pitch and lost a blade and my performance is probably as close to perfect as I can get. I'm running a 3-blade/16P. RPMs are within spec, and my trolling speed dropped too. I don't think the hole-shot is that bad at all, especially for a tiller with the offset weight in the rear.

Careful adding blades because I think sometimes you'll over-prop the boat and you'll go the other way, i.e. worse performance because the motor can't spin the prop. Think of a small car that has too high of gears....it can't accelerate. Bigger motors can handle the extra blades, but I know my 90 didn't like it real well. I had terrible hole-shot, no speed plus porpoising, and my trolling speed was too fast. It couldn't have been any worse!

[PerchJerker]

Quote:

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Careful adding blades because I think sometimes you'll over-prop the boat and you'll go the other way, i.e. worse performance because the motor can't spin the prop. Think of a small car that has too high of gears....it can't accelerate. Bigger motors can handle the extra blades, but I know my 90 didn't like it real well.

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A lot of that depends on prop diameter and blade area. If adding blades adds a lot of blade area to turn through the water, then you need to drop down in pitch. Example - of the 3 props that ran the best on my boat, the 3 blade and 5 blade are 21 pitch, the 4 blade (which has huge blades) is a 19 pitch. Right now I'm running the 4 blade.

[Boedigheimer]

Thanks alot! Your advice was very helpful, I think I'm going to the boat dealer right now.