My new toy "Legend SS"

[Jimmy Johnson]

On 7/4/2016 at 1:06 PM, Parkerhollow said:

Just curious, have you GPS'd the speed on the boat yet and had any luck getting above 32 MPH yet?  

No I have not been able to get her above 32.  Took it out to Kin Kiad Lake on Friday with the wife and kids and still only maxed out at 32.  This is with a full 26gallon tank, and a bunch of junk in the boat for the wife and kids.  Guess I thought this thing would be able to hit 36 myself.  I guess it is a heavier boat than what I thought. I heard people talking about getting stainless impellers for the jet, but don't know how much more speed that will produce for me.   Still loving the boat though

[Seth]

9 hours ago, Jimmy Johnson said:

No I have not been able to get her above 32.  Took it out to Kin Kiad Lake on Friday with the wife and kids and still only maxed out at 32.  This is with a full 26gallon tank, and a bunch of junk in the boat for the wife and kids.  Guess I thought this thing would be able to hit 36 myself.  I guess it is a heavier boat than what I thought. I heard people talking about getting stainless impellers for the jet, but don't know how much more speed that will produce for me.   Still loving the boat though

My 115 came with the stainless impeller, but I'm not sure what the 90's came with. My buddies dad has a pretty bare 1752 Legend SS with a 90 and it would run mid 30's. Your boat will be heavier than his so I'd say 32 is probably about right. The diminishing returns on a jet are pretty bad. If I went from a 150 to a 225ho on my rig, I'd gain 8-10mph on the top end. I think it would have ran me an extra $7k to make the jump as well so not quite $1000 per mph, but not far off.

[Jimmy Johnson]

4 hours ago, Seth said:

My 115 came with the stainless impeller, but I'm not sure what the 90's came with. My buddies dad has a pretty bare 1752 Legend SS with a 90 and it would run mid 30's. Your boat will be heavier than his so I'd say 32 is probably about right. The diminishing returns on a jet are pretty bad. If I went from a 150 to a 225ho on my rig, I'd gain 8-10mph on the top end. I think it would have ran me an extra $7k to make the jump as well so not quite $1000 per mph, but not far off.

Hey Seth, glad you commented on this....my boat didn't have a stainless impeller.  Would I really gain much more to use a stainless impeller?   Also what would one typically run and where can you get one?  Was going to let cowtown do a three maintance on it this fall just so I know everything has been checked over.  Wonder if they provide the service to swap out an impeller?

[Jimmy Johnson]

Another question for you.  Where are you installing the tranducers on these boats?  They have trim tabs on the bottom as well as the revits or welding points on the bottom.  If I install transduce in line with these welding bumps, won't that create bubbles for the transducer.  It looks like I really only have two small spots to mount tranducer on left or right of motor?

I'm the image below you can see the trim tabs and the revit points next to them. Thoughts, thanks

  

[Parkerhollow]

Transducers and me get along like a steak and a pit bull!  I have had some success mounting them on the inside of the hull with epoxy.  I never get more than a month or two out of them mounted on the back.  

Stainless will absolutely make a difference in longevity and reduced impeller/wear ring adjustments and has always given me a small increase in speed.  Based on my 1752 alweld with a 60/40, 1648 alweld with a 90/65, and a 2066 shoal runner with a 350 and a 309 AT.  Your mileage may vary...

Have you checked the wear ring to impeller fit yet?  Also bent, marred intake fins can cut your speed by about 15%, although it seems to only cut it by 15% no matter how bent and marred they get.  Law of diminishing returns I guess.

[BilletHead]

     I am really enjoying this thread fellows and am picking up bits and pieces that may help my boat. So I have a 1754 Excel Stalker with a 60/40. Had it just over a year and a half. She is no speed demon and with me alone I get 26 on the GPS. One thing for sure is if I am going to be in a wreck it will be a low speed one. My hull is heavy. Cannot remember if it is 100 or 125. Excel is mainly a duck boat maker and they make them for abuse. In my stage of life I am not much in a hurry anymore anyway but would like a bit more if possible. Which brings me to this. I was running over on lower Bryant creek and the North Fork of the White op from the forks. Had a visit with a friend over there that knows jets and he said I was a bit too low on the foot. That and he wanted to know what RPS I ran. I am running 5100 on the standard impeller. He said I should be running 5500 and the stainless steel impeller would let me get there.As far as the motor and foot height he thought about half a hole setting off. Take it somewhere and have the appropriate holes slotted and motor raised. So asking the jet boater brain trust here on OA what say you all on this? As far as transducers and mounting I have busted two pop up brackets. Not from running but floating backwards into a log or something stupid like that. I know keep two spare brackets in the garage for spares. When running in a dicey situation I have a piece of parachute cord attached. I reach back and pop it up and tie it off.

  Then there is the grates or fins. I have bashed them a couple of times. Once pretty bad. Just popped the pins out, removed and took them to an anvil with a ball peen hammer. Redressed them with a file, back in and good as new.

BilletHead

Note the Mrs. likes to run it too.

 

[BassMaster#1]

7 hours ago, Parkerhollow said:

Transducers and me get along like a steak and a pit bull!  I have had some success mounting them on the inside of the hull with epoxy.  I never get more than a month or two out of them mounted on the back.  

Stainless will absolutely make a difference in longevity and reduced impeller/wear ring adjustments and has always given me a small increase in speed.  Based on my 1752 alweld with a 60/40, 1648 alweld with a 90/65, and a 2066 shoal runner with a 350 and a 309 AT.  Your mileage may vary...

Have you checked the wear ring to impeller fit yet?  Also bent, marred intake fins can cut your speed by about 15%, although it seems to only cut it by 15% no matter how bent and marred they get.  Law of diminishing returns I guess.

When checking wear ring to impeller fit, is this stored on the ring or impeller somewhere.  Also, I seem to he running 4800 to 5000 when I hit my 32 max speed. Of I trim any higher the motor bogs down because I'm trimming to high.  Seems the trim on jets don't need to be adjusted like normal outboards

Where can I buy stainless steel impeller?  I also heard that loss of speed comes from the impeller not being as close to the ring.  Meaning if the ring is wore you will lose problems, like you mentioned. 

Have you ever heard of taking your grate and sharpening the grates.  Making them act more of a knife point so more water comes through the grates?  Thanks

[Seth]

20 hours ago, Jimmy Johnson said:

Hey Seth, glad you commented on this....my boat didn't have a stainless impeller.  Would I really gain much more to use a stainless impeller?   Also what would one typically run and where can you get one?  Was going to let cowtown do a three maintance on it this fall just so I know everything has been checked over.  Wonder if they provide the service to swap out an impeller?

It seems like a stainless will run you $400, but I might be wrong. Just ask Cowtown about it and they will get you setup correctly. I don't remember if the stainless netted you much for top end, but it was supposed to help with getting on plane faster. They are definitely harder to sharpen, but they do hold up fairly well to eating gravel.

[Seth]

20 hours ago, Jimmy Johnson said:

Another question for you.  Where are you installing the tranducers on these boats?  They have trim tabs on the bottom as well as the revits or welding points on the bottom.  If I install transduce in line with these welding bumps, won't that create bubbles for the transducer.  It looks like I really only have two small spots to mount tranducer on left or right of motor?

I'm the image below you can see the trim tabs and the revit points next to them. Thoughts, thanks

  

This picture is from my previous boat, which was an 1852 like yours. I removed that stupid white pitot valve that is hooked to the speedo and installed the transducer there. It was between the bottom rib next to the trim tab and the spray plate. It had to be slightly lower than the trim tab or else I would get blockage on my right side image beam. It always worked well for me installed like that. When the water got low, I would just flip the transducer up so I didn't have to worry about knocking it off.

I recently stumbled across a product called the transducer lift mount that I am thinking of installing on my boat so I can raise and lower the transducer and still have function 2D while on the river. To raise it up, you just loosen the lock nut, pull the handle up and lock it back down.

 

[Seth]

12 hours ago, BassMaster#1 said:

When checking wear ring to impeller fit, is this stored on the ring or impeller somewhere.  Also, I seem to he running 4800 to 5000 when I hit my 32 max speed. Of I trim any higher the motor bogs down because I'm trimming to high.  Seems the trim on jets don't need to be adjusted like normal outboards

Where can I buy stainless steel impeller?  I also heard that loss of speed comes from the impeller not being as close to the ring.  Meaning if the ring is wore you will lose problems, like you mentioned. 

Have you ever heard of taking your grate and sharpening the grates.  Making them act more of a knife point so more water comes through the grates?  Thanks

Here is a PDF that explains how to shim your impeller and make sure the tolerances between the edge of the impeller and the wear ring are good.
http://outboardjets.com/download/Impeller Shimming.pdf

I know guys that polish the pump, sharpen grates and do a bunch of things to try and get a tiny bit of extra performance out of there OBJ. I'm prone to sucking gravel so I never bother with doing anything outside of keeping my grates straight. My boat would run 42-43mph down streams with brand new grates and it still runs that now that they aren't perfectly straight due to eating some rocks and bumping some logs. It's not worth it to me to do all of that extra work when it will be ruined the first time you eat a rock.