Perry White
New Member
- Joined
- May 31, 2012
- Messages
- 3
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I bought a new tracker v175-SC in 2012. it came with the 90hp mercury 4 stroke which had the standard aluminum 19 pitch three blade prop. All in all I am pretty pleased with the boat/motor except hole shots are poor to say the least. the V175-SC is a big heavy boat. Everytime I had to play with motor trim to get out of
the hole and onto plane and it seemed to take a while (nearly 10 seconds). When on plane my top speed is 42 mph. Last summer (2014) i decided it was time to purchase a new propeller and wanted to go stainless. The online propeller selection tools from Mercury did their job but I still couldn't decide. Finally I found a site where you could post questions and they said someone would contact me. It didn't take long and I had a gentleman call me. He was very helpful, he recommended a 4 blade trophy plus 17 pitch propeller. He assured me that my hole shots would improve and cautioned that I would lose top end speed. So, I took the plunge and bought the prop (around $630 with shipping )and I anxiously awaited it's arrival It came the next afternoon (i'm retired) so I put it on and I picked up my wife after work (she's not retired) and off to the boat ramp we went.
We put the boat into the water, I parked the truck and trailer and off we went.
Wow... I got out into the main channel of the river and pushed the throttle full forward. Man the boat literally lept out of the water and onto plane. I couldn't believe the difference. I had turned the family sedan into a sports car. I throttled down to a stop and tried it again just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. This time I kept going to check top end. To my amazement I had only lost 1 mph and was going 41 mph. I was delighted.
Somewhere I read an analogy about 4 blade propellers, it said think of it as trying to swim with two arms rather than one, that 4th blade was providing an additional push.
the hole and onto plane and it seemed to take a while (nearly 10 seconds). When on plane my top speed is 42 mph. Last summer (2014) i decided it was time to purchase a new propeller and wanted to go stainless. The online propeller selection tools from Mercury did their job but I still couldn't decide. Finally I found a site where you could post questions and they said someone would contact me. It didn't take long and I had a gentleman call me. He was very helpful, he recommended a 4 blade trophy plus 17 pitch propeller. He assured me that my hole shots would improve and cautioned that I would lose top end speed. So, I took the plunge and bought the prop (around $630 with shipping )and I anxiously awaited it's arrival It came the next afternoon (i'm retired) so I put it on and I picked up my wife after work (she's not retired) and off to the boat ramp we went.
We put the boat into the water, I parked the truck and trailer and off we went.
Wow... I got out into the main channel of the river and pushed the throttle full forward. Man the boat literally lept out of the water and onto plane. I couldn't believe the difference. I had turned the family sedan into a sports car. I throttled down to a stop and tried it again just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. This time I kept going to check top end. To my amazement I had only lost 1 mph and was going 41 mph. I was delighted.
Somewhere I read an analogy about 4 blade propellers, it said think of it as trying to swim with two arms rather than one, that 4th blade was providing an additional push.
