Prop Question, hard to get on plane

brandonmayberry

Boat is a 2000 Rinker 242 fiesta vee with a mercruiser 350 mag MPI. Outdrive is a Bravo 3 with 24P props. Boat seems hard to get on plane with just two people and even tougher with more. I have to drop my trim tabs all the way down and go full throttle to get on plane with just me and the wife on there and about 3/4 tank of gas. Getting more people i have to shift weight around and move people up front to get on plane. I know this isnt a very big or heavy boat and the motor should produce a good amount of power with that outdrive so just wondering what your thoughts are on either changing the prop to something else or if maybe i have another issue somewhere. I really dont want to change the props out due to the cost, but if i did i want whatever will get me on plane fastest as im not worried about top speed at all just as long as i can cruiser ontop the water.
Thanks for any insight!

Dream_Inn

Well, I had a '97 240 Sundancer that my wife and 2 kids would go fully loaded for 10 days (yes, it was packed) that had a 350 (can't remember if it was EFI or what it was) but was not an issue.  I did have to always drop the tabs to help getting on plane though.  It had the alpa drive, so with the B-3 you should not have any issue with hole-shot.

planesailing

I have the same issue with my 242 which is fitted with the 5.7 EFI and Bravo 3 outdrive. I've tried all trim settings but always struggle getting it on plane when there is more than 2 on board and sometimes even struggle when just 2 on board. My WOT RPM is about 4400. I've been tempted to change my props to overcome this issue unless anybody else has a better solution.

brandonmayberry

Wot is about 4600rpm and runs around 41mph. Not gps verified. That is keeping the trim on the out drive in a lower Position to keep from bouncing the boat.  I was able to get faster and get around 51mph and 5100rpm by trimming the out drive but the boat really starts to porpoise and I have to drop the tabs or slow down and lower the drive. It won't plane out even with me and my wife unless I drop the tabs all the way down. With tabs down it comes right out of the water however. 

vyborny1

Something does not seem right, I have the 01' 242 with 5.7 EFI with alpha 1 & I have no problem getting on plane without using the taps, with 2 adults & 2 kids with a lot of gear.  I have had 6 adults & had to use the tabs. 
With the mag & BIII, I would think that it would pop right out of the water with just 2 people on. 

brandonmayberry

Just went out with 6 adults and full load and wouldn't plane with tabs all the way down unless I moved at least two people to the front of the boat. What pitch props do you have vyborny1?

brandonmayberry

I have read that the props need to match and you should not mismatch them.

vyborny1

Mine are 16 pitch, again I have alpha 1. I have seen different pitches on bravo III's.  

brandonmayberry

vyborny1 said:

Mine are 16 pitch, again I have alpha 1. I have seen different pitches on bravo III's.  

Oh, must have read over the alpha 1.

I just pulled the boat out of the water and noticed that there is quite a bit of water that sits in the bilge. The bilge does run quite often to pump water out so i assume i have a slow water leak. I wouldnt think this would cause an extra weight issue which would prevent it from having the power like it should since the bilge pumps it out.

Also read on the drive that it is 2.20 ratio.

Michael T

Brandon I'm sure that you know a leak of that magnitude must be found and corrected. That amount of water could not only de-laminate your hull but be the beginning of a worse symptom that could put your boat's ability to float at risk. I'd get that corrected before you decide on props. BTW if you think you have so much water in the bilge that it could actually affect your ability to plane fast enough I'd consider that alarming.

brandonmayberry

Michael T said:

Brandon I'm sure that you know a leak of that magnitude must be found and corrected. That amount of water could not only de-laminate your hull but be the beginning of a worse symptom that could put your boat's ability to float at risk. I'd get that corrected before you decide on props. BTW if you think you have so much water in the bilge that it could actually affect your ability to plane fast enough I'd consider that alarming.

I wasnt sure if it would affect it or not, Im not sure how much the boat will actually hold before the bilge will kick on. I tried filling the engine bay with water and see what was leaking on the outside and i only see water coming out of the exahust ports on the sides of the outdrive so im not sure where water could be going in. I do worry greatly about water coming into the boat because one thing i dont want to do is sink the boat. Any tips on trying to locate the leak?
 I replaced the shift cable awhile back and dont know if thats when i the issue started or not as its a new boat to me and didnt notice the issue prior but never had a chance to have it in the water for very long before i replaced the cable. i did tighten the clamp on the shift cable bellow a few minutes ago to make sure it isnt the problem but didnt see water coming through there but the water level wasnt high enough in the engine bay for that.
Also, i notice on the front of the outdrive lower piece is a hole where exahust comes through. Not sure what its there for. Ill go grab a pic real quick for reference.
Thanks for the help BTW i really do appreciate it so much!!

brandonmayberry

brandonmayberry

Michael T

A small amount of water in your bilge is nothing to worry about after a rain or sometimes after a rapid deceleration where the prop wash runs into the bilge via the stern rain "gutters". After heavy rains I can remove three or four quarts of water from my bilge before the lower bilge pump will activate.  BUT the pump coming on a lot is not a good sign when the boat is at rest. For example we had a guy at our marina whose water heater hose had a leak in it causing the pump to cycle too much. We heard his fresh water pump cycling too much and traced it to that. I had a hard to trace leak on a boat once and my tech's advice was to dry the interior transom and bilge area and look for it at night with a strong light. It took about 40 minutes and my arm almost went to sleep but I found it. It was coming in through a trim tab hose entry point. Keep at it, check all of your water fittings etc. you'll find it. On my 2014 360 I had an intermittent leak. FINALLY I realized that it only happened when I was connected to a shore water supply and the leak was coming from the water fitting at the back of the boat. It took me days to find the friggin' thing!  As well, I'm sure other guys will have useful tips.

brandonmayberry

Ill give it a look. However i just hooked my Rinda DIacom to the engine and it is giving me a low oil level input. When i unhook the wire from the oil pressure switch it goes off. Any idea if this could be causing a slight power reduction?

brandonmayberry

sorry to keep coming back with new issues, but this may be related. In my research is says the engine should only make one beep when the ignition is turned on. When switching my key to the run position it beeps twice.

planesailing

My key also beeps twice. Did you ever verify if this should be the case? Did you also get to the bottom of your planing issue?! I'm running 24p props on my bravo 3. Should I consider changing these to help me plane easier?

randy56

Alswagg said:

I would recommend swapping the forward prop only to a 22 pitch.  Add a 3/8 or 1/2" shim under the trim tab Rams.  This will enhance take off and limit porpoising at Wot.   Running multi pitch props works great when only a couple hundred rpm needs to be achieved.  The forward prop does 70% of the work.     

By giving the tab more travel, pushing deeper in the water, that will give you more lift, makes since, would you put the 1/2 on the tab or at the top? one more question, why did rinker stop puting BB in the 270 in 2000

jhofmann

I have a 2000 242 with a 5.7 TBI (260 hp) with a Bravo III that came with a 22 pitch forward prop, and a 20 pitch rear prop, that came out of the hole like a rocket, but would hit the rev limiter at WOT. Cindy at Rinker researched the transom serial number and said the boat originally came with 24 pitch props front and rear. I found a used set of 24P props that allow me to plane off with the wife on board with little or no tabs, and 2-4 people using the tabs. If I know there will be more than 4 people on board, I put the 20P and 22P props back on. A benefit of keeping the boat in the driveway on the trailer. 

brandonmayberry

Thanks guys, Im going to try to adjust the "celery stick" this spring and see what that does. Im thinking it was put into the wrong position by the PO. If that doesnt do the trick i will be propping down to see what happens.

frenchship

Brandon.
how did you tighten the clip on your shifter shaft bellow, there is a kind of special tool that is easy to do to make sure that the clamp stay round and not squeeze. If you need more info let me know.
Paul

aero3113

Brandon, how is water coming out of your drive exhaust when you fill the engine bay with water? I don't think that sounds right??

brandonmayberry

frenchship said:

Brandon.
how did you tighten the clip on your shifter shaft bellow, there is a kind of special tool that is easy to do to make sure that the clamp stay round and not squeeze. If you need more info let me know.
Paul

If by "Clip" you mean the ring that you just pinch down, i just used pliers. The real difficult part was the hose clamp that needs to be tightened on the grommet end that closer to the boat. I had to use a screw driver and also a ratchet with an extension.

brandonmayberry

aero3113 said:

Brandon, how is water coming out of your drive exhaust when you fill the engine bay with water? I don't think that sounds right??

You are correct, It does not sound right. Its been so long since i did that im not sure if that was where the water was actually coming form. I may have just been mistaken on that. Ill need to recheck it this spring but i may have incorrectly stated what i meant.

brandonmayberry

Sorry to bring back an old tread but I put a set of 4 blade 20 pitch props on the boat and ran it today for the first time. World of difference! Boat comes up out of the water great without tabs and with tabs it doesn't even dig in the rear just flys out of the hole. Wish I would have bit the bullet a year ago and got new props. Oh well, lesson learned. 

chamberb

Glad to hear it worked out Brandon!

planesailing

By "4 place" do you means 4 blade 20 inch props?

brandonmayberry

planesailing said:

By "4 place" do you means 4 blade 20 inch props?

Ahh, apologizes, yes i meant 4 blade. I typed that on my phone and must not have caught the typo. I have corrected it now.

Robs_232

What brand of props did you get Brandon. I was looking at Hill Marine 4 blades last night.

brandonmayberry

I got hill marine. They seemed
to be best quality for price. I'm happy with them thus far. Plan to go out this weekend for our first full day out so we will see how it performs but I'm very optimistic. 

Robs_232

Let us know how the props work. I'm interested in these 4 x 4 props.