Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Ok I have a 2019 starcraft tritoon with a 250 mercury 4 stroke and only getting 5500 rpms and 38 mph whats everyone else running and prop

Boat size?
Gear ratio?
Trim?
Outboard position/height?
Current prop size/pitch???

Won't be apples to apples but here's an example of a Yamaha 250 and their prop on a Starcraft:
https://yamahaoutboards.com/en-us/home/ ... 8-5-18_pnt

And here's the same engine and prop setup on a G3 which is owned by Yamaha so their setups are "power matched".
https://yamahaoutboards.com/en-us/home/ ... -08-20_pnt

25'
1 hole up on mount
15 1/4 ×17 Michigan wheel
Think this mercury is 1.75 ratio?

You're possibly giving up a little mph. I'm running that fast with a F150 and a 24' boat.

Everything looks good as far as the hardware, and one notch up should also work.

I'll blame it on the Michigan prop. I would suggest re-propping your boat to a 15 pitch Mercury Enertia stainless steel propeller. It's simply the standard of the industry for a pontoon, and it comes in 1 pitch increments to get the setup perfect.

My prop guy here said to try the enertia 14.5x17 plus I am in Salt water and its bottom painted should be In the 43 range hopefully

I think the prop guy may be making suggestions based on a traditional hull. Diameter and pitch adjustments both affect RPM, but on a pontoon the typical prop setup calls for going with large diameter to grab as much surface area as possible and correct pitch to get in the sweet spot.

An inch of diameter decrease is supposed to be worth 500 RPM, and an inch of pitch decrease worth 200 RPM. Again, look at those Yamaha setups. They run a 15" pitch with larger diameter than your current prop.

I just have an F200 but my boat is pretty heavy.....about 4000lbs. With a 14.5 x 15 prop it runs 45 at 6000 RPM. The exact same motor on a 2600lb fishing boat gets a 14.25 x 18 prop and does 51 at 6000 RPM.

I'm running a 24' Bennington tritoon with Mercury 4 stroke 250 ProXS and I run an Enertia 16" pitch in the spring/early summer and switch to a 15" Enertia late summer when it gets hot and toons gets some fuzz on them. You should run low to mid 40s.