Re: Proguide v16 sc
I'm late getting into this and the thread's probably long dead, but I'll post anyway.
Beer30, I had almost the exact same setup, although my boat was an '02 Fisher Avenger V16 SC with a 40HP Mercury. Near as I could determine at the time, it was a virtual twin to your boat. Fisher is owned by Tracker.
My performance was exactly the same as yours. In fact with 3 people and the bow livewell full, it would NOT plane. If it was on plane, turning into a stiff wind would sometimes cause it to drop off. Didn't think a different prop would do much as the engine would turn 5500RPM at WOT if/when it finally made it onto plane. With the 40HP engine I felt the boat was an embarassment. It should never have been sold with that engine. A 50 would've been barely adequate, a 60 might've worked out well enough to keep.
In '04 I took advantage of some incentives from Mercury and replaced the 40 a 90HP Classic.
What a difference. Setting the throttle to 3000 RPM, puts it on plane in about 7 or 8 seconds. Once it's on plane you can throttle back to 3000 RPM and it'll stay on plane at about 20mph. Opening it up puts it on plane in a couple of seconds with a topend of around 40MPH. This is a far cry from the original 40HP that had to be turning over 5K to stay on plane at all.
It was an expensive way to solve that problem, but maybe the only way. I'd recommend you set aside the money you would've spent for tabs and save it for a 60HP or larger engine. The Fisher's alot of fun now, whereas before it was a DAWG!
Bob
