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Prop Comparison - Enertia vs. Revolution 4

Well I still have yet to hear from Ken but he really indicated that I would see a significant improvement in BOTH out of the hole AND top end speed with the Enertia based on the numbers I gave him from what I was getting with my old prop. Obviously he was wrong. However he did admit that he wasn't sure if my boat would still be able to turn at 17P prop and get the RPM's up so I'll bet he's going to come back and tell me to use the 14.75 x 16P Enertia. However, my question to him will be ' realistically how much more performance/speed will I see with that? Enough to justify $500? Doubtful at best.
 
Finding the right prop can be discouraging. Tritoons seem to be a different animal. As I said, your boat / engine combo may never be more than a mph or so faster than where you're at now with the Enertia. I do think that the 16p Enertia may be a better overall performer than the 17p strictly because it has a tad more diameter and may net you another 100 or so rpms, but more speed is doubtful.

Ken deals with the saltwater crowd and has limited pontoon feedback.
 
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Well as he told me before the Enertia arrived....if I get more RPM's I'll get more speed and visa versa. As I am still 500 rpm's away from max on my motor, I still have room to go there. I'm not expecting a monumental difference here but it would be nice to break that 40mph barrier.
 
Ken just called me. He's leaving it up to me but he thinks the 14.75 x 16P Enertia would get my RPM's up to about 4750, would give me a little bit better hole shot, but that my top end speed would be either the same as it is right now with the 17P Enertia or 1 mph faster.

So now I have to decide if all that money is worth that minimal improvement or not. If I send this prop back to him without trading in for the other prop I cough up 20% of what I paid for it (meaning he would only refund 80% of what I paid for it). If I want to switch props and try the 16P Enertia it will cost me $35 (plus the cost to ship this one back to him either way I decide).
 
Maybe just me but I would try the 16p.
 
cwag911 said:
Maybe just me but I would try the 16p.
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Believe it or not, even with the minimal improvement and the cost, I am leaning toward that. Thanks for your opinion.
 
1" in pitch will increase rpm's 150-200, but the gain of .25" diameter will decrease rpm's 50-100. The best you can hope for is that the 16p Enertia gains some rpm's and efficiency over the 17p Enertia, which isn't great at 20% slip. I hope that Ken is correct. Lets say that you can turn that 16p Enertia @ 4700. If it can gain some efficiency and run at 15% slip, which is entirely possible, the boat should be running about 42.3 mph. I think you'd be happy with that................................................for awhile lol!

Even 4600 @ 15% = 41.4 mph.

4600 @ 17% = 40.4 mph
 
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I took these pics after I removed the Enertia back off of my outdrive. I noticed it when I put it on. Is this normal? It almost looks like there are chunks missing from around the shaft where the thrust washer sits on it.

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It looks to me like the four notches just behind the thrust washer on the bearing carrier (you can see them better in the ebay photo) are there to remove (unscrew) the bearing carrier. If you look at the other ebay photos, the carrier is threaded on the opposite end away from the notches. Everything on the bearing carrier is round, except for those four notches. So, my guess is there's a special service tool that fits those notches that allows you to unscrew the bearing carrier.

The thrust washer turns with the shaft and does not touch the bearing carrier at all. The thrust washer is wedged onto the shaft close to, but not touching, the bearing carrier due to the shaft having a taper right there (shaft gets a little wider and the thrust washer wedges onto it). You can see the taper in your photos. For that reason, I would say this would run fine, especially if you haven't had problems up to now. But...

BUT, what I would worry about is if you leave this as is, you may NEVER get the bearing carrier off. It's so far gone right now, that even with the service tool, it might be impossible to break it free. The notches are all so badly corroded, the threaded end could be in bad shape too. Someone with more experience could tell you if the threaded end would be clean (protected) from corrosion or not. I would try to replace it now, as it will only get harder to remove as time goes on and the corrosion continues.

But, if you can't break it free, I'd just put the prop back on and leave it alone. Just my 2 cents. Someone chime in if I'm wrong here, as I don't mean to give bad advice, I'm just saying what it looks like to me.

You could try to remove it first, and if successful, then spend the $200 on the new carrier. Otherwise you may be reselling a carrier on ebay if you can't remove the old one...

One additional thought, if the notches are too far gone, maybe there's a tool you could use to grab onto the three spokes (the ones just outside the 4 notches) and try to unscrew it that way.

One more thought, buying the special service tool would probably wipe out the savings in doing this yourself. As much as I like to justify buying tools with the money I saved doing something myself, I'd probably punt on this and have a shop do it.

One LAST thought, just below the threads is a channel that I would guess is for a rubber seal. O-ring kinda thing. So, the threaded end is probably protected from corrosion, and it may not be very hard to remove this, as long as there are enough notches left to grab onto.
 
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Thanks for the info. What you say makes sense to me. I tend to believe that it shouldn't be a problem either. Maybe I will have my Bennington dealer replace this in the off season unless you think by obtaining the special tool for this that this is something I can do with the boat in the water myself.
 
Wow, that's a great find Tom!

Looks like the tool is $125. That's an hour's worth of mechanic labor, and it would take a mechanic far less than an hour to remove this for you (the ad says it takes 2 minutes, yeah, right). But, looks like you'd spend MORE $ doing this yourself. Plus, you don't know what else you'd run into. I wouldn't do this in the water, as lower unit lube is likely to go into the lake.

So, unless you're into spending money to teach yourself lessons (which I admit I've done), I'd punt. Put the prop back on and wait until fall. Hopefully others will chime in here too and agree or disagree. I've only had my prop off one time (last weekend) so I'm just going off what's in the pics and what makes sense to me.
 
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I don't do anything myself that requires proprietary tools unless you can rent them, such as spring compressors or the many tools you can get at auto parts stores. This one just doesn't pay and I'd guess the mechanics that do lower units regularly have a variety of ways to do it anyway.
 
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Wait for the off season and have it done, if it hasn't given you any problems. Now you know why I like to use some kind of grease. Was your boat ever in salt water?
 
Yeah I will wait until the off season.

I don't THINK it was ever in salt water but do not know for sure. I bought it from a marina in eastern PA. It was on a huge man made lake there about 2 hours west of NYC. I don't thinkgrease on the shaft would have prevented this. Maybe I don't have the right anodes on the outdrive?
 
I agree, you might want to check the anodes.
 
Well I sent back the Enertia 17P today and Ken @ Propgods immediately shipped out the 14.75 x 16P Enertia to me so we'll see how that works.
 
C'mon Keith, we live in the home state of the Polar Express. What's the theme of the movie?

BELIEVE !!!
 
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