Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

onlybillhere wrote: ↑

Thu May 07, 2020 12:57 pm

i might go back out today and run it and see if I can run without over-revving. I'll also get some measurements of where the cavitation plate is in comparison to the transom, maybe that will help too. I would like to cut down the amount of water that is spraying over the motor and back on to the pontoon itself. I'll also get some pics of the boat just sitting in the water so you can see where the motor sits in the water.

Cool! I rechecked my setup. I have 2 horizontal plates on my lower unit. The small one on top is even with the bottom of the motor pod when the motor is down. the big plate is about 1.5-2 inches below the pod. Guessing at that -I cant see it too well as the boat is in the stall. The setup is working well tho' I can take off with several people in the boat and the motor trimmed up and it gets up well without blowing out...

This isn't my lower end but a picture of what mine looks like....I have the two small horizontal plates also then the cavitation plate just above the prop: in the videos i posted you can clearly see the cavitation plate exposed when running. I was worried that raising the motor would bring everything up more and expose the water inlets and cause issues cooling the motor. I'm gonna guess that bringing the motor up a little may make the water less turbulent therefore still cover the water inlets since there is less motor in the water causing the turbulence.
This is new territory for me so I appreciate all the advice here, I'm sure once I get all this sorted out it will be time to get rid of the pontoon

I have put SS plugs in the top water inlet ports. Usually the top two holes has been enough for me. Just drill and tap the holes and screw the plugs in so they are flush with the case.

Sorry for the late reply...a lot has changed in a week. I am now one of the many that has been furloughed...and being in Florida that means I get to deal with the worst unemployment website ever in the history of websites.

Anyway, I took the pontoon out last weekend again, had the motor trimmed all the way down and ran great. One thing I did notice on the way back to the dock, the wind was at my back blowing hard, I had a couple ventilation issues. Once I got to areas where the wind wasn't blowing so hard I had no issues. Still had a lot of water kick up coming over the motor. The pontoon will be coming out of the slip next month since we're trying to save some money so I'll have it back at the house to work on the motor height.