Live Wire II

I personally don't us the trim tabs very much, except when on very flat water, as it tends to porpoise, seems the boat likes rougher water.

4mulafastech, I have a 2003 292 Fastech for sale, if you're interested, maybe we can talk.

Bikini Bottom

Boy what a nice weekend (Sunday) on the water. I'm liking the exhaust w/o the silent thunder but I'm gonna get some stainless tips with X-silencers to mellow the note a bit. It's noticeably louder than the box especially at slower speeds. I am trying to convince the boss to let me get some new manifolds as well. I think the extra torque will help out of the hole and the hp should help me get to 5200 consistently, I'm turning more like 4900-5000 now. Light with the right water I do a little better but the extra oomph would be nice.

Tabs: My kids like tubing and I can now get them on plane quicker and stay on plane slower...win-win. But the biggest improvement is control at speed. Running 76 GPS yesterday we started a little chine walk in the cross-chop...a little tab settled her right out, I'd of been backing out with the Bennett's with a POed wife (my .02)!

Caincando1

okay I go the scoop from my buddy. He's running Pro-chargers at 4.5-5lbs of boost. With labbed 32 bravos the boat come out of the whole good, had great mid range and cruise. Top speed was 86 on the speedo(no GPS sorry)at 5200. He dinged these props and put on a set of non labbed 32 and they are terrible. The boat is slow to plane but not impossible. And it will only run 82(again speedo) at 4900. So he was going to back to 32 labbed but had decided to run some hydro 5 blades and see how they work. Should have results in the next month.

As far as tabs go he is running the stock tabs. He runs them level at WOT to keep it from bouncing. But over all he said the boat handle much better now than stock.

As for elivation I have no idea. We boat on the Upper Mississippi River between MN and WI.

NICKM

Hey Brian, thanks for all the great info. Elevation is a very big deal to me because I generally run by boat @ 5000 ft plus. It just kills the performance of the boat. My boat will go 70 plus with 28's at sea level. At 5000 ft, running 26's I can't get the thing to do more than 63mph. I took off the silent thunder and will see how she runs on Weds. -Nick Markosian

Bikini Bottom

Nick,

If you're willing to run a supercharger, you can dial in the pressure-performance you want. with a couple pounds of boost you'll make equal power to sea level...so 4.5-5lbs should give you a nice bump in speed. I suppose you could change the pulleys and add more boost at altitude and then run smaller pulleys at sea level to avoid several sets of props.

The significant atmosphere change really kills power, thats why turbine and turbo engines are so popular in aviation.

I'd be interested to hear what caincando's buddy runs with the labbed 4-blades or 5-bld Hydros.

NICKM

Took the boat out yesterday with the new imco headers and no silent thunder. A definate improvement without the box. I ran in the mid 60's with 26 pitch props where before I could'nt get more than 62mph. Keep in mind I'm way up here 5000 ft elevation. I need to get some exhaust tips. Any suggestions?

Bikini Bottom

Nick,

What kind of R's are you getting now and how much did they improve with the IMCO exhaust? Did you get flamearresters and reprogram your ECUs? I bet 24's would help top-end as long as you have 250 R's or so left on the tach.

I'm ordering angled SS tips with flappers and slip-in silencers. I'll let you know how they sound/look in a few weeks.

NICKM

BIKINI, the 6.2's already come with flame arresters I'm told. As far as the ECU's, we have'nt touched them. Do know of a good place to go? Does it void the warranty? As far as RPM, before the manifolds and removal of the box I was only able to get 4900. Now I'm right at or just slightly over 5000. I'm trying the 24's non labbed next week. I'll keep you posted-Nick Markosian

Bikini Bottom

Nick,

I'm looking for low restriction arresters now. I'll let you know if I find them. Thanks for the exhaust RPM gain #'s...I hope to get about the same after I get the manifolds installed in a week or so. I'll add pictures when I getter done.

NICKM

Took the boat out yesterday running non labbed 24's. Could not get more than 4800 rpm's and 61-62mph. I have not been able to get more than 5000 rpm at high altitudes. 22's maybe? I ran the boat a while back without the silent thunder. Not a big enouph difference to justify the thunderous noise !!!! I put imco headers on. It was very very loud! Anybody out there going to supercharge their 292????-Nick M.