New airboat help

J

Jong1969

Member
New air boater and need local help... A couple of months ago I bought my first airboat. It is a 13 and a half foot fiberglass hole small block Chevy 350 with a five blade warp drive prop. Cannot get boat to get on plain and have other concerns and don't have many friends with airboats with knowledge to help.i have thrown a lot of money at boat with no success and lots of time involved. I really need a local guy I live in Arcadia Florida looking for someone local with lots of airboat knowledge that maybe could help me figure out what is wrong with my boat.
 
Did you test drive the boat before buying? Did it run correctly and plane at that time?

Does it have a tach and what is the WOT (wide open throttle rpm's) with current prop pitch?

Have you checked timing, distributor, plugs, wires, fuel delivery? What parts have you thrown money at thus far?
 
I did not test drive the boat when I purchased it. Yes I know that was kind of stupid but I did get the boat pretty cheap so for what I paid I expected to have a couple issues. I have went over the engine with a fine-tooth comb so I know that is not the problem it has great compression and new heads. The motor has also had a full tune up and have installed a HEI curve kit. The motor is 100% stock and does have a 2 barrel carburetor we kind of thought that might be part of the problem but I guess most people say that a two-barrel should be fine for a direct-drive boat.
Having to get a new prop was the biggest thing I had to do to get the boat to even run at all as it came with a wood prop that from what I have been told are used on either large aircraft engines or 500 caddies. I first put my neighbors would prop on my boat which is a 70 inch 34 degree paddle prop which the boat ran a lot better with that we were not able to get on plane with out finding a couple inches of water getting on plane but as soon as we slow down and try to get back onto plane it would not happen I decided to buy the warp drive propeller found a good deal online and have and was told and have seen videos that they do quite well on small block Chevy 350 airboats my problem now is boat still won't get onto plane and I only have pitch set at 3 degrees spent a whole day starting from 8 degrees all the way down to three degrees even at 3 degrees the engine will not spin it too three grand stops at 2800. We decided because my neighbor has a very similar boat to mine almost exactly we put my prop on his boat at 3 degrees and ran it and it ran incredible.
 
Sounds like u may need to adjust your engine hight in rear ,shim it up and try then down ,I use scrap poly peices cut with a hole saw ,1/4 inch at the time ,or sled ur whole seat package forward one inch at the time ,there's to many variables to predict it perfect ,its trial and error ,I've been doing it since 1975 so ive tried everything at least once .

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Well I can't move my seating forward the engine stand and see platform is all attached to the same Runners not sure if your meeting I should cut all that loose and try to move it forward we have have already tried moving weight forward we move the gas tank almost to the front of the the boat and also with only one other Rider I jumped up on the Bal and still would not help it get onto plane was kind of thinking at that point we were going in the wrong direction I know some people have told me a trim tab might help but not quite sure as it won't even get onto plane won't a trim tab just help you get onto plane faster also just don't really want to go that route unless I was 100% sure that it would work as a good boat really shouldn't need trim tabs it's kind of like a crutch for a different issue.
 
As far as adjusting motor. If it is perfectly level now. But I have not tried that yet so I will take your advice and give that a shot today.
 
He says he can only turn 2800rpm with the warp at 3 degrees so Imo he's not gonna benefit with a wider blade..at this point anyhow..sounds like engine's not producing the rpm if the warp is only turning that at that low of pitch..jmo
 
What's the timing set at? I don't know fer sure but something's going on here cause I would think he should b getting more rpm's with the warp & at 3 degrees I wouldn't think he's getting much push at all or thrust!
 
:rebel: what kind of hull and did you run your engine suffix numbers to see what you have, you may just have a heavy ass hull and not enough horse power. :rebel: is it plowing or what
 
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