Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I have never owned an outboard other than my surface drive motor (air cooled lawnmower engine yes like on the swamp people show) so I'm completely out of my element I have been reading around some and now I'm completely lost as to what's what. I have bought a 95 sun tracker 24' with a 99 force 120hp I have only had it in the water three times I used my iPhone and an app and it said I was running around 25mph (me,wife,and 4 children) the motor was at 4800 rpm. Does this sound correct I am pleased but have seen some post where guys are running 5800-6000 RPMs with 115-120s. I don't know anything about the prop I will measure it later but don't know how to find pitch. Just to give you as much info as possible it's all stock as far as I know. And will the water glide real give me a 50% speed boost?

Forget the Water Glide.

Most of the motors turning 6000 rpm's are 4 strokes. 2 strokes turn a little slower--more like 5500-5800 rpm's.

You might research your motor online to see what the normal range of rpm's are. You might need to go down a couple of pitches to get your motor to its optimium rpm's for that use. The old Force motors were torquey, and they a less rpm's may be normal on them. The speed looks pretty good, however.

Pontoons hit a wall all of a sudden on top end. To go any faster, it takes sure horsepower.

The waterglide is not going to get you 50 percent more speed. You can have lifting strakes installed and that will lift your nose up and give you additional speed by reducing drag. My Yamaha maxes out at 5600 rpm and I run with a 15 pitch prop. My max speed is 28 with a light load.

Welcom Duff! You should be running 4850 to 5250 rpm's. You aren't far off, maybe lugging the motor a little. I almost have the same toon with a merc 115 the best I got with the old wood seats (a lot of them) was 22.8 mph with a 14 x 13 prop. You are doing pretty good for 120 force I would think.If you dropped down some in pitch you should hit the sweet spot! Now that I am about 400 lbs lighter do to my rebuild I am hoping for 25! We will see in a month or so!

Wheres the pics?!

Spec on our Merc 125 is 5250 RPM's

Prop size (pitch and diameter) should be stamped on the prop, so you shouldn't have to measure it.