HP and WOT

Link

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I didn't want to hijack a thread so I started this new. In a discussion on adding the power steering and cost Bamaman wrote "That makes my Yamaha F150 w/o power steering much more attractive. From what I can tell, I'm only giving up between 3 and 6 mph to the F250 motors"

That statement amazed me so I just went and looked at the prop spec that Eric started and was amazed. I Realize this does not take into account the toon packages but tallied the results on R series boats and most were all 2275:

I have the Yamaha 115 and generally top out at 26, this seems to be pretty much the average

The 150's come in from 33 to a high of 44 with most reporting 38mph

a 200HP reported 41mph

Two 225HP report 42 and 43mph

and a 250 reported 42

After seeing that I would think the 150 may be the biggest bang for the buck motor.
 
I love our 150 but do I wish I had more, yup.. I'm a car guy and a Horsepower guy and more is always better. :D That being said, I agree with you on the 150 being the best all around motor for the money and a little fuel savings.
 
I agree with Link, my 150 will run 39.8 on GPS. I think Zodapop's 250 ran 45 or 45. Drag race may really show the difference that 100 hp makes and his Q is alot heavier than my R. Steve
 
I remember reading somewhere that once you reach a certain speed, that it took about 15-20hp to gain 1mph, which seems pretty accurate in your findings.
 
Those are some pretty astute observations Link... Very interesting.

One thing I have wondered about, and not sure how you would figure this out exactly, but it would be interesting to compare top speed with a fully loaded boat. The difficulty is in the "fully loaded" part, where I assume you would have to individually weigh each of your passengers (that ain't gonna happen). It would be interesting to see Link's same comparison between motor size under full load instead of light load. My 115 pulls a tube scary fast with a light load, but its worthless pulling a tube with a full boat. It would be nice to know under those conditions what the best bang for the buck is on motor size.

I guess my real question is if I shelled out the bucks to upgrade to a 150, would I be happy or would it still fall short of expectations. The only way to know without taking the plunge is to bring a dozen friends to a dealer that has my boat with a 150 on it.
 
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We have a 2275 GCW 200 YAMAHA VSO but it does not have power steering . I guess the good thing about never driving a boat until we bought this or ever or even being on a boat for that matter. Is I don't know the difference . We took are boat out twice but not sure how fast it is sounds like it will probably do around 40 maybe from everyones comments. But thanks to people on here we went with the boat with 200 instead of the 150 and am glad we did I would like it a little faster but it's enough I guess.
 
We have a 2275 GCW 200 YAMAHA VSO but it does not have power steering . I guess the good thing about never driving a boat until we bought this or ever or even being on a boat for that matter. Is I don't know the difference . We took are boat out twice but not sure how fast it is sounds like it will probably do around 40 maybe from everyones comments. But thanks to people on here we went with the boat with 200 instead of the 150 and am glad we did I would like it a little faster but it's enough I guess.
What toon setup are you riding on?SPP? Can't be ESP or you'd have power steering.

Derrick
 
Kaydano mentioned top speed in regards to a fully loaded boat and his boats performance suffered when towing a tuber with a fully loaded boat. We do alot of skiing and our toon will easily pull an adult skiier out of the water. (The most we ever towed was 2 adults and a child at one time) But when we ski or are teaching somebody to ski..........we'll limit the amount of people on board. It's hard to pull a skiier out of the water w/6,7, or 8 people onboard. A heavy 220 HP I/O will only do so much............
 
Kaydano, I think it does have more effect on a fully loaded boat. I've had 150's almost keep up with me (2275 GCW, 200hp VMAX SHO) but as soon as we both load up more than 8 passengers they fall behind. If budget wasn't an issue at the time I would have gone for the 250... Then the only time you'd hear me complain is when we can't go slow enough to troll for trout. :)
 
As others have pointed out, the speed tests are generally done under optimum circumstances.

You also want to pay attention to the number of logs a boat has.

CWAG will back me up on this... There are plenty of people with a 250 horse outboard on a 22-25 tri-toon that are running over 50mph. That's frequently after they have done some experimentation with different props of course, and many of them are running jack plates that let them vary the engine mounting height more easily, but still... you're never going to see a 150 crack 50mph.

So think about how you will use your boat. How many people, are you pulling skiers or tubers...

I personally, and this is strictly my opinion... I personally believe the best value is a 250 horse outboard, because part of the value equation for ME is overall performance. A 150 will slow down faster with increasing loads, won't accelerate as quickly and will take more RPMS to hit the INTERMEDIATE speeds than a 250 will.

And of course, as the season goes on and your logs get dirtier, the 150 won't power though as easily.

Having said all that, if you don't plan to load the boat heavily, if 30-something MPH is fine by you... The 150 is NOT a bad choice. It is perfectly valid.
 
We just purchased 2375 GCW with 150 and the express package. I traded my 2575 RL with 115 hoping we get the performance our dealer promised. We will see once the ice comes off the lake.
 
Welcome to the party glorey.
 
We just purchased 2375 GCW with 150 and the express package. I traded my 2575 RL with 115 hoping we get the performance our dealer promised. We will see once the ice comes off the lake.
What year was your 2575? What did the dealer figure you'd get for performance?
 
Our 2575 was 2007 our dealer was saying about 40 on the new boat the old boat was 20 or so max so we are hopeful. I was told if i wasnt happy he would order us another boat. We would have to pay the difference obvioulsy but this is our second boat from our dealer so I trust him.
 
I think of reserver power similar to a battery powered electric drill in terms of torque. A 12volt drill will do well on small screws and soft wood but when you go to put a large screw in hard wood it becomes a major disappointment. (i"m a woodworker) That's when you wish you would have went with the 18 volt model.

To me the same holds true for motor size. If you want reserve power for the times you load your boat with friends, go with the biggest motor that you will think you will ever need and that you can afford.

Just my thoughts. I was originally going to go with 200HP but was surprised at how little difference in price there was to go to 250
 
There is no replacement for displacement !
 
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