Propeller selection info and speeds

[cmattj]

I assume this is a volvo drive? Not my area of expertise, but Merc made a 4x3 dual prop Bravo 3 that greatly improves hole shot and maintains cruise speed at the cost of top end, did Volvo offer something similar?

Yeah Volvo uses thier own codes.. sheesh what a pain .. Gotta loce the Swedes .

Bravo 4 blade try’s to drop slip numbers below 8-9 %. But with these deep drives and all those blades you loose big on top end.

I would love a standard single 4 blade like a Bravo 1x as I could pick up 3-4 mph wide open. But the cruise speed slip numbers would be 10-14 %, so you’d give up 3-4 mph in cruise speed.

Where’s some F9 2 blade props?? Haha! I’d try them

[akorcovelos]

I want to give this a shot, lol.

[cmattj]

Blackhawk surface drive. Sweet but short lived.
Remember there surface piercing , and need a high x dimension ( high engine transom location.)
You’d be better off putting a 2” shorty imco with a 4 blade.

Cobalt with a rooster tail is cool though!!

[akorcovelos]

Now we're talkin'!

[Big Block Power]

I assume this is a volvo drive? Not my area of expertise, but Merc made a 4x3 dual prop Bravo 3 that greatly improves hole shot and maintains cruise speed at the cost of top end, did Volvo offer something similar?

No Volvo did not go that way. Hence the reason I have my crap hill marine 4x4 props.
35mph.heck borrow Bobrae's 240 v4 then. Lol
F3s will really spin that thing but might be too low of a pitch. Or add the alpha 3 drive to get your fat arse up. Lol

[Midlifecrisis]

Tell me about your crap Hill Marine props: the guy at my boat storage place told me to check them out. What's your experience with them?

And yes, 35MPH is the speed limit. You can get away with 45, but not much higher than that. So top end is not as important.

[Big Block Power]

Tell me about your crap Hill Marine props: the guy at my boat storage place told me to check them out. What's your experience with them?

And yes, 35MPH is the speed limit. You can get away with 45, but not much higher than that. So top end is not as important.

Well I will have 2k into these props. I'm having them balanced and blueprinted. Every blade was a diff thickness and a diff shape and diff weights. Lets just say they were junk. I bought a set of F6s from him because his website says don't change the pitch. So that's what I did and they sucked. Couldn't reach rpm plus all performance was gone. Bought in November couldn't put them on till may. So he had a free replacement if they didn't work well come to find out thats only good for the first 6 months. So they didn't want to honor that for me. Hill is in California. Well I'm in Wisconsin we get what they call ice on our lakes. I'm like I just put them on. So that took another year of trying to get Chad Hill to answer my 2 million phone calls. Then of course he didn't have any f5s in stock. Even though they advertised them on there website and ebay. So I think he just threw my prop together over a open fire and sent them to me to shut me up. So a year later I put them on and I still never gained anything from them the F5s I could hit my rpm. So I had to make a decision throw them out or fix them. Well I have Bblades fixing them right now.
Hill marine has been good on b3 drives but Volvo not so much.
I hate reviews because I get enough of them at my work so I didn't blast them on there website. Tempting but didn't. So I'll do it here. If someone Googles it then it will pop up and they can form there own opinion. So that's my 2 cents.
I can't wait to show before and after pictures of them and performance results. Yes BBlades will get all of the credit. He wasn't real thrilled to see them as he sells them too. And was like oh my.

[Big Block Power]

I'll add to this as I use the boat more this summer. 1st time out I could tell a huge diff. They were much smoother and vibration gone. Hole shot and midrange is back and impressive. Very happy so far. Top end report coming soon I hope. Brett at BBlades was awesome.

[Midlifecrisis]

Prop report follow up in case anyone is interested: I replaced my F6 with F5s, with the idea that I could always go down one more if needed. Changing the props was a piece of cake. Probably five minutes with the manual prop wrench tool. Hole shot was improved, but not as much as I wanted. It still won't pull an athletic medium sized man out of the water on a single ski.

[Big Block Power]

I think we recommended f4s time to sell the f5 and f6 and buy a pair.

[cmattj]

I think we recommended f4s time to sell the f5 and f6 and buy a pair.

cmattJ, thanks for the details. Keep in mind that the lake has a speed limit of 35 MPH, so top end speed is less of a concern than giving the boat enough grunt to pull my fat behind out of the water on a ski.

It sounds like the key to that is a shallower prop that will let the engine spin faster out of the hole without lugging - is that the way to look at it?

Speed limit of 35?. Oh my (sigh)....

Yes as you read , and already suspected. Lower F series equals reduced forward pitch.
I may suggest then find some used F3 props to try. She’ll be in the sweet spot. F4 will still be a huge difference.

F4 sounds good .